Community safety, security, health communication and emergency notification system with common short code SMS communication capabilities

ABSTRACT

A community safety system (CSS) including a notification management entity (NME) comprising servers, the NME communicatively coupled to multiple user devices and one or more administrator devices (collectively, registered user devices). The CSS includes a plurality of registered users, wherein registered users may be associated with an organization, and a user category of a set of user categories. The NME may maintain a list of the registered users and associated information. The registered users may have user devices including a CSS application operating thereon, or SMS messaging program operating thereon. In some embodiments the CSS enables SMS-to-CSS App communications, and vice versa, enriching the CSS with information from users employing disparate communication platforms on their devices.

CROSS-REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATIONS

This application is a continuation application of, and claims thebenefit of U.S. patent application Ser. No. 15/876,111 filed on Jan. 20,2018, which is hereby incorporated herein by reference in its entirety.

TECHNICAL FIELD

The disclosed technology relates generally to community notificationsystems, and more particularly, some embodiments relate to integratedcommunity communication and notification systems providing enhancedtwo-way interaction between users (e.g., administrators, securityofficers, personnel, emergency responders (such as a policedepartment/officer), and/or other categories of registered users),faster response times and orderly information propagation among users,decentralized notification capabilities, direct police-communityinteraction, inter-organizational interactions, common short code SMScommunication integration (e.g., generating broadcast messages fortransmission as SMS messages from a common short code operator,processing free-form and preprogrammed SMS messages from userdevices—optionally populating other users' mobile emergency apps or SMSmessaging feeds with one or more of the netted SMS based transmissions),among other compatibilities to improve and enhance emergencycommunication.

DESCRIPTION OF THE RELATED ART

When emergencies arise on campuses, such as schools, hospitals,businesses, government buildings, and/or non-governmental organizations,providing information to the community is important in limiting thescope of the emergency. Some current solutions provide text-basednotification systems that send a text or SMS broadcast message to allregistered users at the same time, informing those registered users of adeveloping situation and providing relevant information to the user.Most of these systems are strictly one-way, meaning that a SMS broadcastmessage may be sent to registered users, but registered users cannotcontact the administrator regarding a developing emergency, or providemeaningful free-form (i.e., non-preprogrammed) SMS based replies thatcould potential quicken the resolution of the emergency situation. Evenin systems employing some degree of two-way communication, the method ofcommunicating an emergency to system administrators requires either (i)the use of dedicated devices (such as disparately placed call boxes),(ii) the use of preprogrammed responses (i.e., one or twopredefined/preselected terms that a system is predesigned to interpretas an understandable response to a common short code SMS basedbroadcast, e.g., providing a ‘YES’ response to a broadcast messagestating: “Reply ‘YES’ if you received this message”), (iii) that theinformation is provided only to a single, central entity (e.g.,associated with a single phone number or email address), or (iv) the useof equipment that otherwise limit the efficiency with whichcommunications are processed and distributed, undermining overalleffectiveness of such systems. With reference to the use ofpreprogrammed responses to common short code based SMS broadcastnotifications, for example, in current systems responding via SMS tosuch a common short code sourced SMS broadcast notification is limitedin scope as there is no way to derive, or handle in a meaningful way, anon-preprogrammed response to a common short code sourced SMS broadcastnotification, thus hindering relevant mass organic bidirectional (i.e.,two-way) communication among relevant users. With such a technologicalhard stop, current systems cannot achieve the level of organiccommunication between users of disparate technologies (e.g., some appusers, some SMS users, some email users, etc.) that is necessary toefficiently address an emergency situation.

Moreover, such conventional systems noted above also generally lack anefficient (e.g., tap to share) or visual (e.g., aerial map) emergencysource finding feature (ESFF) to assist emergency responders inpinpointing where the source/cause of an emergency is located, amongother information about such area (e.g., where a gunman is on thecampus, where such gunman may be headed, what users are located in ornear such area, etc.).

BRIEF SUMMARY OF EMBODIMENTS

According to one or more embodiments of the disclosed technology, acommunity safety system is provided that includes one or morenon-transitory computer readable media storing machine readableinstructions which, when executed by one or more processing engines,causes the system to: identify a phone number associated with a devicefrom which an incoming free-form SMS message was sent; determine if thephone number identified is associated with a registered user to whom abroadcast notification was caused to be sent, the broadcast notificationcaused to be sent by an administrator device running a mobileapplication, a source of the broadcast notification being associatedwith a common short code; determine, responsive to a determination thatthe phone number identified is associated with a registered user to whoma broadcast notification was caused to be sent, an amount of timeelapsed between the time the last broadcast notification was sent andthe incoming free-form SMS message was received; determine, responsiveto a determination that the amount of time elapsed was less than apredetermined threshold, an organization the registered user who sentthe free-form SMS message is associated with, and contact addresses forone or more other registered users and administrators associated withthe organization; and relay the incoming free-form SMS message to theone or more other registered users and administrators associated withthe organization; wherein determining an organization the registereduser is associated with comprises determining the registered user'slocation, and identifying an organization within whose security zoneboundaries the registered user's location falls.

According to one or more embodiments of the disclosed technology, acommunity safety system is provided that includes one or more of: anotification management entity comprising one or more servers, thenotification management entity communicatively coupled to one or moreuser devices and one or more administrator devices; a plurality ofregistered users, wherein each registered user of the plurality ofregistered users is associated with an organization, and a user categoryof a set of user categories associated with the organization; whereinthe notification management entity maintains a list of the plurality ofregistered users, the registered user's associated organization, theregistered user's user category, and the boundaries of a security zoneassociated the user's organization, each security zone comprising acontinuous geographic area, one or more buildings or other structures,one or more non-continuous geographic areas, or a combination thereof;an SMS messaging application operating on at least one registered userdevice; a community safety system application operating on at least oneadministrator device and at least one registered user device; whereinthe notification management entity, responsive to receiving an incomingfree-form SMS message: identifies a phone number associated with thedevice from which the incoming free-form SMS message was sent;determines if the phone number identified is associated with aregistered user to whom a broadcast notification has been sent, thebroadcast notification caused to be sent by an administrator devicerunning the mobile emergency application; determines, responsive to adetermination that the phone number identified is associated with aregistered user to whom a broadcast notification has been sent, anamount of time elapsed between the time the last notification was sentand the incoming free-form SMS message was received; determines,responsive to a determination that the amount of time elapsed was lessthan a predetermined threshold, if the incoming free-form SMS messageincludes a hotkey associated with a subset of users; fetches, responsiveto a determination that the incoming free-form SMS message does includea hotkey associated with a subset of users, contact addresses for thesubset of users associate with the hotkey; and/or relays the incomingfree-form SMS message to the user devices associated with the contactaddresses fetched.

In accordance with some embodiments, the notification management entity:determines, responsive to a determination that the phone numberidentified is not associated with a registered user to whom a broadcastnotification has been sent, whether the registered user associated withthe phone number has authorization to initiate free-form SMS broadcastnotifications; and/or relays, responsive to a determination that theregistered user associated with the phone number has authorization toinitiate free-form SMS broadcast notifications, the incoming free-formSMS message to the at least one administrator device.

In accordance with some embodiments, the notification management entity:opens a secure communication conference channel between the registereduser and the at least one administrator. In some implementations thenotification management entity may further monitor communicationactivity occurring over the secure communication conference channeland/or closes the secure communication conference channel responsive toa determination that the activity occurring over the channel meets anon-utilization criteria. A non-utilization criteria may be met if nocommunication (or nominal communication) has taken place over thechannel for a predefined period of time, or if some other predeterminedmetric has been satisfied.

In accordance with some embodiments, the notification management entity:notifies one or more additional administrators and one or moreadditional registered users of the ongoing secure communicationconference channel; and/or provides the additional administrators andthe additional registered users with an access link and anauthentication key to access the ongoing communication conferencechannel; and/or prompts, upon a recipient administrator's or recipientregistered user's selection of the access link for the communicationconference channel, the selecting recipient administrator or theselecting recipient registered user to enter the authorization keyprovided; and/or joins, responsive to a determination that a selectingrecipient administrator or selecting recipient registered user hasentered the correct authorization key, such selecting recipientadministrator or selecting recipient registered user into the securecommunication conference channel.

In accordance with some embodiments, the notification management entity:monitors communication activity occurring over the secure communicationconference channel; and/or closes the secure communication conferencechannel responsive to a determination that the activity occurring overthe channel meets a non-utilization criteria. A non-utilization criteriamay be met if no communication (or nominal communication) has takenplace over the channel for a predefined period of time, or if some otherpredetermined metric has been satisfied.

In accordance with some embodiments, the notification management entity:discards, responsive to a determination that the registered userassociated with the phone number does not have authorization to initiatefree-form SMS broadcast notifications, the incoming free-form SMSmessage and terminates further processing of the incoming free-formmessage. In some instances, discarding the incoming free-form SMSmessage may involve a deletion operation. In some embodiments, at leastone of the at least one administrator devices is associated with anemergency medical services department. And in still further embodiments,the at least one administrator device is outside the boundary of thesecurity zone associated the registered user's organization.

In accordance with some implementations, relaying the incoming free-formSMS message to the registered user devices associated with the contactaddresses fetched may include populating a messaging interface of acommunity safety system application running on one or more of saiddevices with the text of said incoming free-form SMS message.

According to one or more embodiments of the disclosed technology, acommunity safety system is provided that includes one or more of: anotification management entity comprising one or more servers, thenotification management entity communicatively coupled to one or moreuser devices and one or more administrator devices; the notificationmanagement entity maintaining a list of a plurality of registered users,the registered user's associated organization, the registered user'suser category, and the boundaries of a security zone associated theuser's organization (each security zone comprising a continuousgeographic area, one or more buildings or other structures, one or morenon-continuous geographic areas, or a combination thereof). In someembodiments a mobile emergency application may operate on at least oneadministrator device and at least one registered user device incommunication with the notification management entity; and an SMSmessaging application may operate on at least one registered user devicein communication with the notification management entity.

In some embodiments, the notification management entity, responsive toreceiving an incoming free-form SMS message: identifies a phone numberassociated with the device from which the incoming free-form SMS messagewas sent; determines if the phone number identified is associated with aregistered user to whom a broadcast notification has been sent, thebroadcast notification caused to be sent by an administrator devicerunning the mobile emergency application; determines, responsive to adetermination that the phone number identified is associated with aregistered user to whom a broadcast notification has been sent, anamount of time elapsed between the time the last notification was sentand the incoming free-form SMS message was received; determines,responsive to a determination that the amount of time elapsed was lessthan a predetermined threshold, an organization the registered user whosent the free-form SMS message is associated with, and the contactaddresses for one or more other users and administrators associated withthe organization; and/or relays the incoming free-form SMS message toone or more of the other registered users and administrators associatedwith the organization.

In accordance with some embodiments, the notification management entity:determines, responsive to a determination that the phone numberidentified is not associated with a registered user to whom a broadcastnotification has been sent, whether the registered user associated withthe phone number has authorization to initiate free-form SMS broadcastnotifications; and/or relays, responsive to a determination that theregistered user associated with the phone number has authorization toinitiate free-form SMS broadcast notifications, the incoming free-formSMS message to the at least one administrator device.

In accordance with some embodiments, the notification management entity:opens a secure communication conference channel between the registereduser and the at least one administrator; and/or monitors communicationactivity occurring over the secure communication conference channel;and/or closes the secure communication conference channel responsive toa determination that the activity occurring over the channel satisfies anon-utilization criteria. A non-utilization criteria may be met if nocommunication (or nominal communication) has taken place over thechannel for a predefined period of time, or if some other predeterminedmetric denoting non-utilization has been satisfied.

In accordance with some embodiments, the notification management entity:notifies one or more additional administrators and one or moreadditional registered users of the ongoing secure communicationconference channel; and/or provides the additional administrators andthe additional registered users with an access link and anauthentication key to access the ongoing communication conferencechannel; and/or prompts, upon a recipient administrator's or recipientregistered user's selection of the access link for the communicationconference channel, the selecting recipient administrator or theselecting recipient registered user to enter the authorization keyprovided; and/or joins, responsive to a determination that a selectingrecipient administrator or selecting recipient registered user hasentered the correct authorization key, such selecting recipientadministrator or selecting recipient registered user into the securecommunication conference channel.

In accordance with some embodiments, the notification management entity:monitors communication activity occurring over the secure communicationconference channel; and/or closes the secure communication conferencechannel responsive to a determination that the activity occurring overthe channel meets a non-utilization criteria. A non-utilization criteriamay be met if no communication (or nominal communication) has takenplace over the channel for a predefined period of time, or if some otherpredetermined metric denoting non-utilization has been satisfied.

In accordance with some embodiments, the notification management entity:discards, responsive to a determination that the registered userassociated with the phone number does not have authorization to initiatefree-form SMS broadcast notifications, the incoming free-form SMSmessage and terminates further processing of the incoming free-formmessage. Discarding the incoming free-form SMS message may include adeletion operation.

In some embodiments, at least one of the at least one administratordevices is associated with an emergency medical services department;and/or the at least one administrator device is outside the boundary ofthe security zone associated the registered user's organization.

In some embodiments, determining an organization the registered user whosent the free-form SMS message is associated with comprises: determiningthe registered user's location; and/or identifying an organizationwithin whose security zone boundaries the registered user's locationfalls.

In some embodiments, determining an organization the registered user whosent the free-form SMS message is associated with comprises: searching alookup table stored at the notification management entity that includesassociated organization information about registered users.

According to one or more embodiments of the disclosed technology, amethod is performed including the steps of: identifying a phone numberassociated with a device from which an incoming free-form SMS messagewas sent; determining if the phone number identified is associated witha registered user to whom a broadcast notification was caused to besent, the broadcast notification caused to be sent by an administratordevice running the mobile emergency application, the source of thebroadcast notification being associated with a common short code;determining, responsive to a determination that the phone numberidentified is associated with a registered user to whom a broadcastnotification was caused to be sent, an amount of time elapsed betweenthe time the last broadcast notification was sent and the incomingfree-form SMS message was received; determining, responsive to adetermination that the amount of time elapsed was less than apredetermined threshold, an organization the registered user who sentthe free-form SMS message is associated with, and the contact addressesfor one or more other registered users and administrators associatedwith the organization; relaying the incoming free-form SMS message tothe one or more other registered users and administrators associatedwith the organization; wherein determining an organization theregistered user is associated with comprises determining the registereduser's location, and identifying an organization within whose securityzone boundaries the registered user's location falls.

According to an embodiment of the disclosed technology, a system andmethod is provided for bi-directional communication via common shortcode SMS based notifications, wherein common short code mass SMSnotifications, and SMS based responses thereto, may be handled so as toprovide organic bi-directional communication among users, or subsets ofusers. Such systems and methods enable law enforcement, firstresponders, site administrators and security stake holders to netrelevant non-preprogrammed information pertinent to a time sensitive orlife-critical situation from numerous (e.g., thousands of users) ofcommon short code notification recipients (and vice versa), increasinginformation dissemination among users having devices transmittingmessages in accordance with disparate communication protocols (e.g.,SMS, email, mobile app messaging, etc.), reducing response times, andimproving the ability of emergency responders to timely resolve anemergency situation.

Other features and aspects of the disclosed technology will becomeapparent from the following detailed description, taken in conjunctionwith the accompanying drawings, which illustrate, by way of example, thefeatures in accordance with embodiments of the disclosed technology. Thesummary is not intended to limit the scope of any inventions describedherein, which are defined solely by the claims attached hereto.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

The technology disclosed herein, in accordance with one or more variousembodiments, is described in detail with reference to the followingfigures. The drawings are provided for purposes of illustration only andmerely depict typical or example embodiments of the disclosedtechnology. These drawings are provided to facilitate the reader'sunderstanding of the disclosed technology and shall not be consideredlimiting of the breadth, scope, or applicability thereof. It should benoted that for clarity and ease of illustration these drawings are notnecessarily made to scale.

FIG. 1 is an example environment in which embodiments in accordance withthe technology of the present disclosure may be implemented.

FIG. 2 is an example community safety system in accordance withembodiments of the technology of the present disclosure.

FIG. 3 is an example student interface of an example community safetysystem interface operating on a user device accordance with embodimentsof the technology of the present disclosure, implemented in an exampleschool environment.

FIG. 4 is an example communication channel interface of an examplecommunity safety system application operating on a user device inaccordance with embodiments of the technology of the present disclosure.

FIG. 5 is an example broadcast message interface of an example communitysafety system application operating on a user device in accordance withembodiments of the technology of the present disclosure.

FIG. 6 is an example teacher interface of an example community safetysystem interface operating on a user device accordance with embodimentsof the technology of the present disclosure, implemented in an exampleschool environment.

FIG. 7 is an example lockdown initiation interface of an examplecommunity safety system application operating on a user device inaccordance with embodiments of the technology of the present disclosure.

FIG. 8 is an example parent interface of an example community safetysystem interface operating on a user device accordance with embodimentsof the technology of the present disclosure, implemented in an exampleschool environment.

FIG. 9 is an example administrator/police interface of an examplecommunity safety system interface operating on a user device accordancewith embodiments of the technology of the present disclosure,implemented in an example school environment.

FIGS. 10A and 10B are example broadcast generation interfaces interfaceof an example community safety system interface operating on anadministrator device accordance with embodiments of the technology ofthe present disclosure, implemented in an example school environment.

FIG. 11 is a flow diagram of an example alert notification process inaccordance with embodiments of the technology of the present disclosure.

FIG. 12 is an example communication channel interface of an examplecommunity safety system application operating on an administrator devicein accordance with embodiments of the technology of the presentdisclosure.

FIG. 13 is an example location visualization interface of an examplecommunity safety system application operating on an administrator devicein accordance with embodiments of the technology of the presentdisclosure.

FIG. 14 is an example environment where a student attempts to generatean alert notification while outside an example security zone, inaccordance with embodiments of the technology of the present disclosure.

FIG. 15 is a flow diagram of an example location-based capabilitydetermination method in accordance with embodiments of the technology ofthe present disclosure.

FIG. 16 is a flow diagram of an example threshold-based automatic policenotification method in accordance with embodiments of the technology ofthe present disclosure.

FIG. 17 illustrates an example computing module that may be used inimplementing various features of embodiments of the disclosedtechnology.

FIG. 18 is a flow diagram of an example location-based capabilitydetermination method including a student-parent association inaccordance with embodiments of the technology of the present disclosure.

FIGS. 19A, 19B, and 19C illustrate an example escort request interfacein accordance with embodiments of the technology of the presentdisclosure.

FIGS. 20A and 20B illustrate an example escort user interface inaccordance with embodiments of the technology of the present disclosure.

FIG. 21 illustrates an example situation of multiple organizationshaving individual security zones (with geo-fencing) in accordance withembodiments of the technology of the present disclosure.

FIG. 22 illustrates an example process of inter-organizationalcommunication in accordance with embodiments of the technology disclosedherein.

FIG. 23A illustrates an example administrator interface in accordancewith embodiments of the technology disclosed herein.

FIG. 23B illustrates an example population status interface inaccordance with embodiments of the technology disclosed herein.

FIG. 24A illustrates an example student interface in accordance withembodiments of the technology disclosed herein.

FIG. 24B illustrates an example population status response interface inaccordance with embodiments of the technology disclosed herein.

FIG. 25 illustrates an example environment in which systems and methodsof the present disclosure may be implemented, here depicting that commonshort code SMS based messages may be transmitted to (and/or free-formSMS messages received from) users having devices not running the CSSmobile application but instead communicating in accordance with SMSfunctionality of their devices, in accordance with one or moreembodiments of the present disclosure.

FIG. 26 illustrates an example method that may be implemented inconnection with the SMS integrated environment shown in FIG. 25, inaccordance with one or more embodiments of the present disclosure.

FIG. 27 illustrates an example method that may be implemented inconnection with the SMS integrated environment shown in FIG. 25, inaccordance with one or more embodiments of the present disclosure.

FIG. 28A illustrates an example method that may be implemented inconnection with the SMS integrated environment shown in FIG. 25, inaccordance with one or more embodiments of the present disclosure.

FIG. 28B illustrates an example SMS messaging interface and an exampleCSS mobile app messaging interface depicting features that may beachieved by implementing one or more methods and systems of the presentdisclosure.

FIG. 29A illustrates an example method that may be implemented inconnection with the SMS integrated environment shown in FIG. 25, inaccordance with one or more embodiments of the present disclosure.

FIG. 29B illustrates an example SMS messaging interface depicting apopulation status notification/request (from common short codeoperator—associated with “Titan1!” as shown in the Figure), aconstituent's SMS based response to such notification, and a locationsharing short link generated and transmitted from the common short codeoperator (triggered responsive to the constituent recipient's reply tothe notification), which may be achieved by implementing one or moremethods and systems of the present disclosure.

FIG. 29C illustrates an example visualization interface depicting userlocations in accordance with one or more embodiments of the presentdisclosure.

FIG. 30 illustrates an example method that may be implemented inconnection with the SMS integrated environment shown in FIG. 25, inaccordance with one or more embodiments of the present disclosure.

FIG. 31 illustrates an example method that may be implemented inconnection with the SMS integrated environment shown in FIG. 25, inaccordance with one or more embodiments of the present disclosure.

FIG. 32A illustrates an example environment depicting how a third partyentity (e.g., a 911 PSAP entity) may be communicatively integrated withsystems and methods of the presently disclosed technology, in accordancewith one or more embodiments of the present disclosure.

FIG. 32B illustrates an example method that may be implemented inconnection with the SMS integrated environment shown in FIG. 32A, inaccordance with one or more embodiments of the present disclosure.

The figures are not intended to be exhaustive or to limit the inventionto the precise form disclosed. It should be understood that theinvention can be practiced with modification and alteration, and thatthe disclosed technology be limited only by the claims and theequivalents thereof.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE EMBODIMENTS

The technology of the present disclosure addresses many of the drawbacksof current emergency systems for institutions, such as schools,hospitals, large venues, corporations, and other institutions.Embodiments of the technology disclosed herein provide a two-waycommunication system for initiating and broadcasting alerts of threatsand developing emergencies, and receiving and processing replies to suchbroadcasts, both to and from users of mobile app based messaging, SMSmessaging, push notification based messaging, and email based messagingplatforms, to achieve an integrated environment where users of manydisparate communication protocols/platforms may be in two waycommunication with one another. In some instances, anyone associatedwith the system is capable of sending an alert notification toadministrators (e.g., those responsible for ensuring the safety of allassociated with an institution) of a threat or arising emergency, suchas a shooter on an institution's campus, a medical emergency occurringat a particular campus location, or other emergency situations that needaddressing. Such alerts may be initiated by use of (i) a communitysafety system (CS S) application operating on any user device, such as amobile phone, PDA, smartwatch, laptop, or other mobile device connectedto a communication network, such as a cellular network, the Internet, oran intranet, and/or (ii) an SMS based messaging program operating on anyuser device, such as a mobile phone, PDA, smartwatch, laptop, or othermobile device connected to a communication network, such as a cellularnetwork, the Internet, or an intranet. This alleviates the drawbacks ofstandard call box technology, and ensures that the mosttemporally-relevant information is communicated to those in charge fromthe best source of valuable information—the individual at the scene asit is developing.

Further, embodiments of the technology disclosed herein provide acentral management entity for managing communication between members ofthe institution. When an alert is initiated (whether via a CSS mobileapplication or SMS messaging program), the central management entity maycreate a dedicated communication channel between the individual whoinitiated the alert and one or more of the administrators responsiblefor protecting those associated with the institution. Individuals mayprovide additional details to the administrators in real-time directlyfrom the scene, providing invaluable information for addressing andmaintaining control of the situation.

The technology of the present disclosure further decentralizes thebroadcast notification capability. Administrators are capable ofgenerating broadcast notifications from anywhere via a user device. Insome cases, broadcast notifications may be tailored for a specificcategory of registered users, and transmitted solely to that impacteduser category. In this way, more tailored broadcast notifications arepossible without the potential to bog down the communication network,alleviating the potential for notification delays due to networkcongestion. Such issues have arisen in current emergency communicationsystems, sometimes with notifications not reaching the intendedrecipients anywhere between two hours after being sent (such as the casewith the Virginia Tech campus shooting) to even several days later.

A faster and more effective “lockdown” procedure may be achieved throughimplementation of embodiments of the present disclosure. A lockdown is aspecialized broadcast message intended to notify all those of a serioussituation occurring on campus. Generally, to initiate a lockdownprocedure, most current systems require that an individual locate a hardwired telephone and enter a code, or trigger the lockdown via a devicelocated in a central location, such as the main office of a school.However, if the emergency itself compromises the central location orrenders an individual's ability to reach a telephone improbable, thelockdown is not triggered, meaning that others in the institution willremain ignorant to the dangerous situation. In live shooter drillsconducted by police departments, one of the main drawbacks of currentsystems was the delay in triggering the lockdown procedure and in someinstances the inability to trigger the lockdown procedure altogether.

Embodiments of the technology disclosed herein addresses this drawbackthrough a one-touch lockdown initiator (for CSS app users) or a codebased SMS message lockdown initiator (for SMS users) that registeredusers may trigger via any user device. This enables individuals totrigger the lockdown without the need to go to a specific location anduse a designated device, allowing the lockdown to be initiated fromanywhere. This reduces the potential for the lockdown initiation processto be compromised.

Embodiments of the present disclosure further provide directpolice-community interaction, unlike traditional emergency systems. Mostcurrent systems are self-contained, meaning that the police are not tieddirectly into the system. Instead, contact must be made with the policein addition to sending the notification out to members of the communityor institution. Embodiments of the technology disclosed herein include auser category for the police, enabling valuable information regarding anemergency directly to the police, instead of needing to be relayedseparately. Broadcast notifications may be sent to the police inaddition to the rest of the community. Moreover, some embodimentsinclude a special police notification capability. If the centralmanagement entity receives two alerts from different individuals withina certain amount of time of each other, the central management entitymay send a specialized notification directly to the police indicating apotentially dangerous situation developing. Multiple threats mayindicate one large emergency is developing that may require policeintervention, or that there are multiple emergencies at one time thatthe administrators may not be capable of addressing simultaneously.

In addition, by including the police within the emergency communicationsystem, the police are capable of directly interacting with members ofthe institution. Police may initiate alerts and generate broadcastmessages via a user device in the same way as any other member of theinstitution. This incorporation of the police within the system helpsbuild a greater relationship between the police and members of theinstitution, while allowing the police to directly communicate importantinformation to individuals in an efficient and effective manner.

Unlike many current systems, the embodiments of the technology disclosedherein address many of the privacy concerns arising in the new digitalage. In cases where members interact with the system via SMS messagingor an application downloaded onto a user device (e.g., a CSS App of theinstant disclosure), such as a mobile phone or tablet computer, the needto ensure privacy is important. This is especially true whereembodiments are implemented at schools, where the privacy of the studentis a major concern, as well as other organizations where maintaining theprivacy of occupants, personnel, patrons, or other constituents iscritically important (e.g., hospitals, government entities). Althoughthe central management entity (e.g., a notification management entity)is capable of obtaining location data regarding each user, such locationinformation—obtained via a GPS receiver or other location service of theuser device—may not be obtained or logged until the user attempts toinitiate an alert. Even then, in some embodiments the central managemententity may be configured such that it does not track an individual'slocation once the initiated alert is ended. Moreover, in someembodiments the information is only obtained by the central managemententity; no location data for a user is stored or obtained directly by anadministrator, the police, emergency medical services (EMS) (e.g.,police, fire departments, ambulances), or any organization utilizing thesystem. To further increase privacy and security, no informationregarding individuals are stored at the user device, only at the centralmanagement entity. In this way, information is made available only whenit is necessary to address an ongoing emergency.

Before describing in detail the technology of the present disclosure, itmay be helpful to describe an example environment in which embodimentsof the technology may be implemented. FIG. 1 shows an example CommunitySafety System (CSS) 100 in which embodiments of the technology disclosedherein may be implemented. A plurality of user devices 102 are connectedwith a notification management entity (NME) 104 through a network 106.The type of communication network represented by network 106 may vary,depending on the communication protocol available to the user devices102 at a given time. Some non-limiting examples of communicationprotocols over which the user devices 102 may connect to the network 106include: cellular telecommunications protocols, such as GSM, UMTS,CDMA2000, LTE, or WiMAX; wired communication methods, such as cable,DSL, dial-up, or fiber-optic; or wireless communication methods, such assatellite communications, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, or near-field communication(NFC). The user devices 102 may be able to utilize more than one type ofcommunication protocol to connect with the network 106 in someembodiments.

User devices 102 may be any number of computing devices, having a memoryand processor. Non-limiting examples of user devices 102 are: desktopcomputers; laptops; tablets; cell phones; smart phones; wearabletechnology, such as smart watches; PDAs; or other communication devices.In some embodiments, an alert system application (sometimes referred toherein as a CSS App) running on the user devices 102 provides a userinterface that enables users to communicate with the NME 104 through thenetwork 106. The alert system application may be an applicationdownloaded to the user devices 102 and stored in memory. In someembodiments, an SMS messaging program running on the user devices 102provides a messaging interface that enables users to communicate withthe NME 104 through the network 106 via SMS messaging protocols. In someembodiments, the alert system application and/or the SMS messagingprogram may be operating within another program running on a user device102, such as a web browser.

The user devices 102 communicate with the NME 104 through the network106. The NME 104 comprises one or more servers. In various embodiments,the NME 104 may be a data center where all the one or more servers arephysically co-located. Other embodiments may have the one or moreservers being located in different physical locations, with each of theservers being connected in a distributed computing network. In someembodiments, at least one of the one or more servers may be a virtualserver. The NME 104 may comprise a cloud server. In various embodiments,the NME 104 may comprise a combination of these different server types.

Having thus described an example environment in which the disclosedtechnology can be implemented, various features and embodiments of thedisclosed technology are now described in further detail. After readingthe description herein, it will become apparent to one of ordinary skillin the art that the disclosed technology can be implemented in any of anumber of different environments operating with any of a number ofdifferent user devices 102.

Embodiments of the technology disclosed herein provide an emergencynotification system, the CSS including an NME (or other centralmanagement entity), for use by communities and different entities suchas schools, hospitals, and malls. The CSS notifies communities membersof ongoing emergencies and dangerous situations relevant to thecommunity members. In addition, the CSS provides a secure, two-waycommunication system to enable community members to notifyadministrators, police, EMS and/or other responders of dangeroussituations and emergencies occurring at the time. FIG. 2 illustrates anexample implementation of the CSS 200 on a school campus in accordancewith the technology disclosed herein. For ease of discussion, thevarious features of the CSS 200 will be described herein in reference toan example implementation on a school campus. The use of a school campusas the example environment in no way should be read to limit theapplication of the technology described herein to only that environment.After reading the description herein, it will become apparent to one ofordinary skill in the art that the disclosed technology can beimplemented in any of a number of different communities, includinghospitals, malls, airports, exhibition halls, and other large areaswhere many people may be present.

The CSS 200 includes an NME 202, a plurality of user devices 206, atleast one administrator device 208, and a connection to the police 214.It should be appreciated that the police is used as just one example ofthe type of EMS entity that may be connected within the CSS 200. Any EMSorganization, public or private, or any other type of organization maybe tied into the system and capable of receiving or sending any one ormore of the notifications and alerts discussed herein. In variousembodiments, the NME 202 may be similar to the NME 104 described withrespect to FIG. 1. A plurality of NMEs may be deployed in someembodiments, each NME 202 servicing a particular security zone 210(sometimes referred to herein as a zone of interest). The security zone210 may be a single building 212 (i.e., a school building) or multiplebuildings 212 comprising a campus. In various embodiments, the securityzone 210 may encompass a continuous geographic area (e.g., defining acampus or other zone of interest), or it may encompass one or moregeographically separate areas (e.g., the separate areas togetherdefining a campus (or other zone of interest), such as satellitebuildings located a few blocks away from a main campus). The securityzone 210 may also encompass a buffer area around the zone of interest(e.g., a buffer area around the campus). For example, the security zone210 may encompass all the buildings 212 within the campus, as well as abuffer zone comprising all the surrounding area within 100 feet of thecampus.

Each of the plurality of user devices 206 and the administrator device208 can communicate with the NME 202 over a network 204. The network 204may be similar to the network 106 described with respect to FIG. 1. Thenetwork 204 may provide the channel through which alerts and othernotifications may be sent via the NME 202 to and from user devices 206and/or at least one administrator device 208.

Although identified as user devices 206 and administrator device 208,both categories of devices may be similar to the user devices 102discussed above with respect to FIG. 1. For example, the administratordevice 208 may also be one or more of: desktop computers; laptops;tablets; cell phones; smart phones; wearable technology, such as smartwatches; PDAs; or other communication devices. The differentiationbetween user devices 206 and administrator devices 208 is related to theuser category associated with the particular device at the time ofoperation, based on the method of registration with the NME 202.Registration shall be discussed in detail below.

The NME 202 is responsible for ensuring a secure and private connectionbetween the user devices 206 and the at least one administrator device208. As will be described in more detail below with respect to FIGS.3-16, when the NME 202 receives an alert from one of the user devices206, the NME 202 may create a secure communication channel between theuser device 206 that sent the alert and at least one of theadministrator devices 208 registered with the system. The NME mayoptionally allow select additional users (who the alert may be relevantto, or who have generated similar alerts, or alerts from similarlocations, for instance) to join the secure communication channel (e.g.,to dial-in to a secure conference call). The secure communicationchannel provides at least two-way communication between the user whoinitiated the alert via the user device 206 and an administrator usingthe administrator device 208; and optionally multi-way communicationbetween multiple users and/or multiple administrators via theirrespective devices. In this way, users may provide valuable additionalinformation regarding the extent of the emergency. For example, if amedical emergency is occurring, the user can inform the administrator ofthe type of medical emergency is ongoing, such as an allergic reaction.With this additional information, the administrator using theadministrator device 208 can identify the best course of action toaddress the situation.

In addition to creating secure communication channels, the NME 202 mayalso maintain a listing of all registered users on the CSS 200, and theuser category to which they belong. For example, an CSS 200 implementedfor a school environment may have the following types of usercategories: students; teachers; and administrators. In otherembodiments, greater or fewer categories may be included, depending onthe granularity desired by the implementing institution. Each usercategory may have different capabilities. For example, a student may beable to initiate an alert and view broadcasted messages, while a teachermay be able to initiate an alert, view broadcasted messages, andinitiate lockdown procedures via a lockdown button. In some embodiments,a “parents” user category may be included, which may be associated witha registered student to provide additional functionality to the studentuser. A more detailed discussion of the different capabilities availableto each example user category will be discussed with respect to FIGS.3-16.

The CSS 200 may include a connection to the police 214 (or other EMS).In various embodiments, other emergency management entities may beincluded in lieu of, or in addition to, the EMS. Some non-limitingexamples of other emergency management entities may include hospitals,fire departments, or authoritative entities (e.g., private health andemergency organizations). In some embodiments, governmental agencies(e.g., FEMA, DHS, etc.) may also be connected within the CSS 200. Aperson of ordinary skill in the art would appreciate that the discussionherein, whether explained with respect to EMS interconnection generallyor a single EMS entity such as the police, is applicable other emergencymanagement entities, governmental agencies, or any organization desiredfor a given implementation of the presently disclosed technology.

Referring to FIG. 2 by way of example, the police 214 may interact withthe CSS 200 in a variety of ways. In some embodiments, the police 214may have a central terminal installed at one or more police departmentswithin a certain distance of the security zone 210, such as, forexample, a desktop computer. Police officers on duty and responsible forthe area within which the security zone 210 is located may haveadministrator devices 208 in various embodiments that are connected tothe NME 202 over the network 204.

By including the police 214 (or other EMS, for example) within the CSS200, greater community-police interaction (or other community-EMSinteraction, for example) is possible, thereby enabling the exchange ofinformation between the two entities. In addition, by looping the police214 (or other EMS, for example) into the CSS 200, response time toemergencies may be reduced, and the information communicated to the EMSentities may result in an improved response (as more information as tothe situation is conveyed faster). In some embodiments, the CSS 200 mayinclude a police (or other EMS) notification trigger, which in someembodiments may be a threshold related to the number of alerts receivedby the NME 202 within a given period that sends a special notificationto the police 214 (or other EMS) of one or more emergencies ongoing inthe security zone 210.

For example, if the NME 202 receives two or more alerts within afive-minute period, the NME 202 immediately transmits the alert (orother notification) to the police 214. In this way, no one individualneed contact the police such that, if the main office is compromised forsome reason, the police will still be notified without requiring aperson to physically pick up the phone and dial 911.

FIG. 16 illustrates an example threshold-based automatic notificationmethod in accordance with embodiments of the technology of the presentdisclosure. Utilizing embodiments of the threshold-based automaticpolice notification method enable a NME 202 to alert police without theneed for an administrator to initiate an alert be sent to the police214. At 1602, an administrator sets a police notification trigger value.The police notification trigger value may be a set period between alertnotifications received from multiple users in some embodiments, suchthat the NME 202 will send a broadcast notification to the police 214(in the illustrated example) if the time between two consecutive alertnotifications received by the NME 202 from two registered users is lessthan the set period. In various embodiments, the police notificationtrigger value may be a set number of notifications received by the NME202 during a set period, such that if the NME 202 receives four or morealert notifications within five minutes, the NME 202 immediatelynotifies the police 214. If the police notification trigger value is notexceeded in such embodiments prior to expiration of the period, theprocess starts over again.

At 1604, the NME 202 receives a first alert from a user device at afirst time. The NME 202 records the time of the first alert. In someembodiments, the user device of 1604 may be an administrator device,i.e. a device utilized by a registered user associated with anadministrator user category who is logged into a CSS applicationoperating on the device. At 1606, the NME 202 receives a second alertfrom a second user device at a second time. Again, the NME 202 recordsthe time of the second alert.

At 1608, the NME 202 identifies the period between the first time of thefirst alert and the second time of the second alert, and determineswhether that period falls within the police notification trigger valueset by the administrator at 1602. If YES, at 1610 the NME 202 transmitsa special alert to the police 214. In some embodiments, the specialalert may comprise a broadcast message to one or more administratordevices associated with the police 214 indicating that multiple eventsare developing on campus. The NME 202 may attach a detailed listing ofthe types of emergencies ongoing to the special alert in variousembodiments, to provide the police 214 with additional relevantinformation.

If the period between the first time of the first alert and the secondtime of the second alert is greater than the police notification triggervalue set by the administrator at 1602, the NME 202 does not take anyaction outside its normal operation, illustrated at 1612. Though theforegoing threshold-based automatic notification technology has beendiscussed with reference to a connection with the police, it should beappreciated that this is merely presented as one useful but nonlimitingexample of the presented technology. Indeed, it should be appreciatedthat the technology disclosed herein may extend to implementationshaving connections to one or more other EMS entities or otherorganizations, depending on the desired objectives.

The users, administrators, and police may interact with the CSS 200through: (i) a CSS application (sometimes referred to herein as a CSSApp or CSS mobile app) operating on the user devices 206 oradministrator devices 208; (ii) an SMS messaging program operating onthe user devices 206 or administrator devices 208 (discussed in furtherdetail with reference to FIGS. 25-32B); or (iii) another portalaccessible via the user devices 206 or administrator devices (e.g., aweb browser, etc.). The CSS application and/or SMS messaging programsand/or other portals may provide a user interface through which a user,administrator, or the police may send and receive alerts andcommunications through the NME 202 of the CSS 200. As discussed above,the CSS 200 may provide different user categories that may be associatedwith different registered users, providing different capabilities basedon the associated user category (e.g., different categories of usershaving different permissions/authorizations to perform one or moreactions in connection with CSS 200).

Accordingly, in some embodiments each user is registered with the NME202 prior to being included within the CSS 200. In some embodiments, theregistration may be based on the particular user device 206 oradministrator device 208 on which the CSS application is operating. Insome embodiments, the registration may be based on a predefined SMSsubscription keyword sent to the NME when an initially unregistered usersends a message containing the keyword to a common short code associatedwith the NME. Non-limiting examples of information indicative of thespecific device that may be utilized for registration include: Internetprotocol (IP) address of the device; media access control (MAC) addressof the device; serial number of the device; phone number associated withthe specific device; and other unique identifiers associated with userdevices 206 and administrator devices 208. In other embodiments,registration may be based on unique identifiers related to a particularuser logged into the CSS application operating on a user device 206 oradministrator device 208, or based on unique identifiers related to aparticular user associated with the number that sent an SMS message tothe NME of a CSS. Non-limiting examples of unique identifiers related toa particular user include: an email address; a phone number a username;or the last four digits of the user's social security number; or anyother unique identifier.

Privacy is a key concern in developing an emergency alert system similarto embodiments in accordance with the technology discussed herein.Although it is important to know who is generating alerts and theirassociated with an institution, it is important to make sure that nottoo much information is obtained that a person's privacy is thought tobe violated. This is enhanced when dealing with minors, such as primaryschool-aged students, or when dealing with personnel or other occupantsof information sensitive organizations, such as government agencies, themilitary, hospitals, or non-governmental agencies (NGOs), to name a few.In some cases, the registration process may only require the user'sfirst and last name, and an associated email address. In this way, theperson is identified by their given name, and the email address may beused for verification purposes.

Through registration, the NME 202 is capable of monitoring what usersare capable of generating alert notifications. In addition, registrationenables the NME 202 to include identifying information of the user, suchas the user's name, to curtail the possibility of false alert generationby anonymous users. In some embodiments, the NME 202 may require that anadministrator or supervisor of the institution implementing the CSS 200must verify any user attempting to register with the CSS 200 before theuser is permitted to access the NME 202. The addition of users may needto be conducted by the implementing institution in some embodiments,instead of allowing individual users to attempt to register themselves.User information may be inherited from one or more databases ormanagement information systems associated with an institution ororganization in various embodiments. For example, where the CSS 200 isimplemented within a school environment, user information could beinherited from school or school district databases, such as a studentinformation system managed by the school district. When the studentgraduates or leaves a particular school, the CSS 200 can update based oninformation from the student information system indicating that thestudent is no longer associated with that particular school or CSS 200,and may remove them from the system.

Although described with respect to a single institution, the CSS 200 mayinclude multiple physical institutions, e.g., the CSS 200 covers anentire school district with multiple individual schools. In suchembodiments, the CSS 200 may be managed by a school district. The NME202 may be configured to dedicate one or more servers to each school,creating multiple sub-CSS domains within the CSS 200. The multiplesub-CSS domains may be serviced by all the servers of the NME 104 insome embodiments, and the NME 104 may be configured to provideadditional processing power to a particular sub-CSS domain based on thebandwidth necessary at a particular time, i.e., if an emergency isongoing and messages need be sent to a large number of registered users.In this way, the CSS 200 enables robust response and can ensure thatmessages are delivered in a timely fashion.

As discussed above, each user category may be provided differentcapabilities within the CSS 200. In the present example implementationon a school campus, there are five different user categories: student;parent; teacher; administrator; and police. Although the present examplehas five categories, other example implementations may have greater orfewer user categories, depending on the different types of users thatmay be present in the security zone 210, or the number of differences incapabilities that the implementing institution wants to provide.

Each user, administrator, and police department/officer may interactwith the CSS 200 through: (i) a CSS application operating on the userdevices 206 or the administrator device 208; (ii) an SMS messagingprogram operating on the user devices 206 or administrator devices 208(discussed in further detail with reference to FIGS. 25-32B); or (iii)another portal accessible via the user devices 206 or administratordevices (e.g., a web browser, etc.). The capabilities available to eachuser are dependent on the user category associated with the user. When aregistered user logs into the CSS application on a device the NME 202identifies the user category to which the logged-in user is associatedand provides a user interface enabled with the capabilities availablefor that user category. Similarly, when a registered user sends an SMSmessage to the common short code associated with the NME 202, the NME202 identifies the user category to which the sending user is associatedand may further transmit communication to the user through the SMSmessaging interface the user is already using on their device. FIGS.3-16 are example user interfaces provided via an example CSS applicationin accordance with the technology of the present disclosure. AlthoughFIG. 3-16 depict an interface of an example CSS app running on a deviceconnected to the CSS, it should be note that similar functionality maybe implemented with respect to users having devices that are not runningthe CSS (i.e., the same or similar functionality may be extended tousers communicating with SMS based messaging not conducted through theCSS App—discussed in more detail with reference to FIGS. 25-32B. Exampleembodiments identifying different capabilities for the example usercategories identified above will be described within reference to FIGS.3-16.

FIG. 3 is an example student user interface 300 in accordance withvarious embodiments of the technology disclosed herein. Throughout theinstant disclosure certain categories of users, such as students, may bereferred to as non-administrators when, depending on the implementation,they are not associated with an administrator category and do not haveadministrator capabilities. For instance, in the example school campusimplementation, the student user interface 300 may be thought of simplya non-administrator user interface associated with a student usercategory. Through student user interface 300, a student may be allowedto generate an alert and view broadcast messages. As illustrated in FIG.3, the student user interface 300 includes an alert type area 302. Astudent may use the alert type area 302 to select a type of alert togenerate. In various embodiments, the alert type area 302 may include aset of pre-defined alert types represented by selectable icons. In theillustrated student user interface 300, the alert type area 302 includesseveral pre-defined alert types: an alert for a weapon on campus; analert for weather-related emergencies; an alert for an unknown orsuspicious person being on or near campus; an alert for drug use orsales occurring on campus; an alert for a fight about to start orongoing; and an alert for a medical emergency. Additional categories maybe included in other embodiments, such as a type for maintenance-relatedemergencies (i.e., water pipe burst on campus). A user-definable typemay be included in some embodiments to enable the student to providetheir own defined type of emergency, in the event the emergency does notfall within the pre-defined types in the alert type area 302.

Once the student has selected the type of alert from the alert type area302, the student can send the alert by clicking the “Send Alert” button304. By hitting the “Send Alert” button 304, an alert notification issent to the NME 202 illustrated in FIG. 2. In some embodiments, thealert may be sent after a certain amount of time passes after thestudent selects the alert type in the alert type area 302, without theneed to hit a “Send Alert” button 304. In some situations, it may bebetter and safer to enable a one-touch alert, instead of requiring thestudent to hit the “Send Alert” button 304. Various embodiments mayinclude a quick-alert shortcut, wherein the user may bypass the need tohit the “Send Alert” button 304. Where the CSS application is running ona device having a traditional input system (e.g., a mouse), the studentmay simply double-click the selectable icon within the alert type area302, immediately sending the alert. Where the CSS application is runningon a device having a touchscreen or other pressure sensitive input, theCSS application may immediately send the alert based on the pressureapplied in selecting the selectable icon. Light pressure may select theselectable icon, but heavy pressure may select the type of alert andinitiate the alert in one motion.

After receiving the alert from the student, the NME 202 identifies theregistered individuals associated with the administrator user category,and sends the alert to one or more of those identified administrators.By alerting those associated with the administrator user category, thosewith the authority to initiate a lockdown procedure can determinewhether such a procedure is necessary, based on the nature of thereceived alert. In some embodiments, the NME 202 may send the alert toall the administrators associated with the administrator user category.In various embodiments, the NME 202 may send the alert to a subset ofthose associated with the administrator user category.

In addition to routing the alert to one or more of the registeredadministrators, the NME 202 also opens a dedicated communication channelbetween the student's user device 206 and one or more of theadministrator's administrator devices 208. FIG. 4 illustrates an examplecommunication channel interface 400 opened in the CSS applicationoperating on the student's user device in accordance with embodiments ofthe technology of the present disclosure. By providing the communicationchannel, administrators are capable of obtaining additional informationregarding the ongoing emergency from the student who initiated thealert. The NME 202 opens the communication channel interface 400 in theCSS application operating on the student user device 206 immediatelyafter the student sends the alert in some embodiments. In otherembodiments, the NME 202 may delay in opening the communication channelinterface 400 on the student user device 206 until at least one of theadministrator devices 208 acknowledges the alert and is ready to speakwith the student. A similar communication channel interface 400 is alsoopened on at least one of the administrator devices 208 that acknowledgethe alert. In some embodiments, more than one administrator device 208may acknowledge the alert, and the NME 202 will open a similarcommunication channel interface 400 on each acknowledged administratordevice 208. In such embodiments, a group communication is establishedbetween the student user device 206 and each acknowledging administratordevice 208, allowing all participants to see the ongoing communication.

The ability for two-way communication between the student who initiatedthe alert and the one or more administrators enabled by thecommunication channel interface 400 opened by the NME 202 improves onthe traditional one-way notification systems currently employed oninstitutional campuses. Allowing students to initiate alerts via a userdevice 206 from anywhere on campus reduces the time necessary to providevaluable information to administrators or the authorities, alleviatingthe issues related to stationary call boxes. Further, information may begathered in real-time, removing the delay between the identification ofan emergency and administrators and authorities arriving at the scene.

In some embodiments, students and administrators may transmit more thanjust text-based messages to each other, further improving upon thecurrent systems. As illustrated in FIG. 4, the communication channelinterface 400 may include the ability to send voice recordings bytoggling a microphone button 404. When engaged, the microphone button404 activates the microphone of the user device 206 to enable thestudent to record a message to send to the one or more administratordevices 208. In some embodiments, the microphone button 404 may open anaudio stream through the NME 202 in the event that the student is unableto type a text-based message or wants to allow the administrators tolisten to everything that is ongoing. Where the user device is equippedwith a camera, the microphone button 404 (or other button) may open avideo and/or audio stream through the NME 202, such that images and/oraudio of the scene may be streamed to the requisite administrators, EMSpersonal, organizations, or other crisis managers, in variousembodiments.

Students may also attach files to send to the one or more administratordevices through the communication channel interface 400 by selecting anattachment button 408. The files attached by the student may be filesstored in the memory of the user device 206 in some embodiments. Thefiles may include documents, photos, video, or other data item that thestudent wants to send to the administrator devices. In some embodiments,students may also be able to send stored video clips or streaming videothrough the communication channel interface 400 to the administratordevices 208.

Although described in relation to the capabilities of the student withinthe communication channel interface 400, each administrator may be ableto send text, audio, video, or other types of data to the student viathe similar communication channel interface operating on theadministrator devices 208.

In various embodiments, once the student has initiated an alert throughthe student user interface 300 of FIG. 3, the student may onlycommunicate with administrators until the alert is ended. Thecommunication channel interface 400 of FIG. 4 may include an “End Alert”button 402 in some embodiments, which a student may use to end an alertthat that student initiated through an CSS application operating on thestudent's user device 206. In some embodiments, students may only endalerts that the particular student initiated; those associated with thestudent user category do not have the capability to end alerts initiatedby another person.

Referring back to FIG. 3, the example student user interface 300 mayfurther include an audible alert trigger 308 in various embodiments.Some emergency situations may require an audible and visible alert atthe scene. For example, if a student is being stalked or followed by astranger, or is being assaulted, alerting those within the vicinity asto the emergency may help cease or prevent further harm. In variousembodiments, a student may trigger an audible alarm by sliding theaudible alert trigger 308. Where the student's user device includes atouch screen, the student may trigger the audible alarm by swiping theaudible alert trigger 308 to one side. The direction of the swipe may beconfigured based on the dominant hand of the student: in someembodiments, the swipe may be to the left, in other embodiments, theswipe may be to the right. In some embodiments, the student may be ableto swipe in the left or right direction. When used, the audible alerttrigger 308 of the CSS application may initiate a loud alarm soundutilizing speaker included within the user device, alerting those nearbyof an emergency and potentially scaring off the suspicious character orattacker. In various embodiments, the audible alert trigger 308 may alsotrigger a visible indicator, such as flashing a light included withinthe user device.

To ensure that students do not accidently initiate the audible alerttrigger 308, the CSS application may identify whether a swipe wasintended or not in various embodiments. The CSS application may onlyinitiate the audible alert if the student swipes the audible alerttrigger fully across the screen, indicating that the student trulyintended to initiate the alert. If the student does not fully swipeacross the screen, the audible alert trigger 308 may return to itsoriginal position and the CSS application would not initiate the audiblealert.

Both the example student user interface 300 and the communicationchannel interface 400 allow a student to view broadcast notifications byclicking on a broadcast message button 306, 406. Broadcast messages arenotifications broadcast by one or more administrators to all registeredusers of the CSS 200 of FIG. 2, providing information regardingemergencies occurring within the security zone 210. In this way, thebroadcast messages keep everyone informed of ongoing situations, and canbe used to provide relevant information, such as locations ofprotection, open exits, and to warn those not within the security zone210 to stay away until the emergency is resolved. The broadcast messagebutton 306, 406 may be represented by an icon, like the radio tower iconin the illustrated examples of FIGS. 3 and 4. In other embodiments, thebroadcast message button 306, 406 may be a text button, similar to theillustrated example “End Alert” button 402. Other buttons, sliders, orselectable display object may be utilized to trigger the transmission ofbroadcast messages, or alternatively to end an alert originally sent asa broadcast message.

An example broadcast message interface 500 in accordance with thetechnology disclosed herein is illustrated in FIG. 5. As illustrated,the broadcast message interface 500 includes a listing of the broadcastmessages sent by administrators and/or the police (or other EMS entity)to all registered users of the CSS 200 of FIG. 2. An example broadcastmessage 502 shows a broadcast message related to an initiated lockdownprocedure. Another example broadcast message 504 shows a broadcastmessage containing evacuation or relocation information related to anemergency occurring at Demo High School. The broadcast message interface500 may store a listing of all the broadcast messages sent byadministrators and/or police to the registered users of the CSS 200 insome embodiments. In other embodiments, the broadcast message interface500 may list only the last x number of broadcast messages, such as thelast 10, 20, or 35 broadcast messages. Each broadcast message shown inthe broadcast message interface 500 may have an expiration value invarious embodiments, wherein the broadcast message is no longer shown inthe broadcast message interface 500 after a certain amount of time, orother measurement variable (i.e., only the last four broadcast messagesare shown). The broadcast message notifications visible in the broadcastmessage interface 500 may be stored locally on a user device or anadministrator device, or the notifications may be stored at the NME andpushed or pulled to the user device or administrator device when thebroadcast message button 306, 406 is activated.

In some embodiments, the CSS 200 may further enable students to requestescorts in the event the student does not feel safe traveling alone orneeds assistance for some reason. FIGS. 19A, 19B, and 19C illustrates anexample escort request interface 1900 in accordance with embodiments ofthe technology of the present disclosure. A student may enter the escortrequest interface 1900 by selecting an escort request button in anoptions menu of the example student user interface 300 of FIG. 3. Insome embodiments, the options menu may be a drop down menu available onthe student user interface 300 or it may be accessible by clicking orswiping to the side of the student used interface 300.

As shown in FIG. 19A, the escort request interface 1900 may include amap marker area 1902. The student may use the map marker area 1902 toindicate where on the map a student. In some embodiments, the CSS 200may obtain location data from the user device and use the locationinformation in identifying where the student is on the map in the mapmarker area 1902. The student may, in some embodiments, move the markeridentifying where the student is to another location, if the studentwants to meet the requested escort at another location. In someembodiments, the student may also enter a destination address.

After the student has identified where the student is located or wantsto be picked up, the student may request an escort by selecting the“Request Escort” button 1904. In some embodiments, the request may besent automatically once the student presses the “Request Escort” button1904. In other embodiments, a confirmation screen may be displayed bythe CSS application to ensure that the student wants to request theescort. In such embodiments, where the CSS application is running on adevice having a traditional input system (e.g., a mouse), the studentmay simply double-click the “Request Escort” button 1904, immediatelysending the request. Where the CSS application is running on a devicehaving a touchscreen or other pressure sensitive input, the CSSapplication may immediately send the request based on the pressureapplied in selecting the “Request Escort” button 1904. Light pressuremay register as a normal press of the “Request Escort” button 1904, butheavy pressure may bypass any delay or confirmation screen andimmediately send the request.

Once the request has been sent and accepted, the escort requestinterface 1900 may indicate to the student that the request has beenaccepted and provide an estimated time of arrival for the escort. FIG.19B illustrates an example escort request interface 1900 for such anembodiment. In some embodiments, the escort request interface 1900 mayinclude additional information. Some non-limiting examples of additionalinformation that may be provided to the student via the escort userinterface 1900 of FIG. 19B include: the name of the escort; a picture ofthe escort to enable the student to identify the escort; the phonenumber of the escort; or estimated routes that may be taken once theescort arrives to reach the intended destination, if the student is ableto enter a destination address. As the escort moves closer to thestudent, the escort request interface 1900 of FIG. 19B may display tothe student the actual location of the escort.

FIG. 19C illustrates an example escort request interface 1900 once theescort has begun in accordance with embodiments of the technologydisclosed herein. As shown in FIG. 19C, the escort request interface1900 indicates that the escort is in progress. In some embodiments, theCSS 200 may be capable of determining that the escort has begun based onthe relative locations of the student and the escort, as identifiedbased on location information obtained from each respective user device.Various embodiments may require that the escort indicate that the escorthas begun using a CSS application running on the escort's user device.

Although described with respect to a registered user associated with astudent user category, some embodiments may enable any registered userto request an escort. For example, in some embodiments a registered userassociated with a teacher user category may need an escort to helpassist in moving from one place to another.

FIG. 6 illustrates an example teacher user interface 600 where (incontinuing with the school example environment) the user is associatedwith the teacher user category in accordance with embodiments of thetechnology of the present disclosure. In the illustrated embodiment, theteacher user interface 600 is similar to the example student userinterface 300 of FIG. 3. In various embodiments, the teacher usercategory has the same capabilities to create an alert (602, 604),communicate with administrator devices 208 (i.e., a similarcommunication channel interface 400 as illustrated in FIG. 4), and viewbroadcast messages (i.e., broadcast message button 606). These functionsof the teacher user interface 600 function in a similar way as thosedescribed above with regards to FIGS. 3 and 4. Although not shown inFIG. 6, the example teacher user interface 600 may include an audiblealert trigger similar to the audible alert trigger 308 illustrated inFIG. 3.

As discussed above, a key to resolving emergencies is the ability tocontrol the campus, which is usually achieved by initiating a “lockdown”of the campus. In various embodiments, a lockdown includes sending abroadcast message to all registered users and administrators indicatingthat the school is on lockdown. Many active shooter drills, performed bypolice departments to check the lockdown procedures of schools, haveidentified, however, that lockdown procedures were too slow. This meansthat it took too long for the lockdown to be initiated, enabling thelive shooter to injury and/or kill one or more persons on campus. One ofthe reasons for the slowness of the lockdown procedure was that alockdown generally needed to be initiated from the front office. If anemergency compromised the front office, a lockdown procedure may neveractually be initiated.

To address these issues related to initiation of a lockdown, embodimentsof the CSS 200 in accordance with the present disclosure provides aone-touch lockdown capability. Because teachers themselves may be theclosest school officials/employees with sufficient information todetermine whether the situation calls for a lockdown to be initiated,some embodiments of the teacher user interface 600 includes a lockdowninitiator 608. If necessary, a teacher may use his or her user device206 to initiate a download by pressing the lockdown initiated 608. Insome embodiments, the lockdown procedure may begin immediately after theteacher presses the lockdown initiator 608. To provide for potentialunintended initiations, a timed delay may begin once the lockdowninitiator 608 is pressed, providing a period during which the lockdownmay be cancelled, in some embodiments. In such embodiments, the CSSapplication may enable immediate initiation of a lockdown in similarfashion as the immediate alert generation described above with respectto FIG. 3 and the double-click/heavy pressure functionality. Forexample, a double-click on the lockdown initiator 608, or heavy pressureon the lockdown initiator 608, may result in an immediate initiation ofthe lockdown procedure, bypassing any delay. An example lockdowninitiation interface 700 in accordance with the present disclosure isillustrated in FIG. 7.

A teacher user category may also be capable of serving as an escort, asdescribed above with respect to FIGS. 19A, 19B, and 19C. Escorts couldalso be registered users associated with other categories, such asadministrators, supervisors, police, or even other students. When actingas an escort, a registered user may accept a request for an escort andassist another registered user. FIGS. 20A and 20B illustrate an exampleescort user interface 2000 in accordance with embodiments of the presentdisclosure. As illustrated in FIG. 20A, the escort user interface 2000may display to the registered user acting as the escort informationindicating that a student or other registered user as requested anescort. The escort user interface 2000 may also display additionalinformation, such as but not limited to the name of the requester, phonenumber of the requester, a photo of the requester, the intendeddestination, or other information relevant to deciding whether to assistwith the escort.

The registered user acting as the escort may press an “Accept” button2002 to indicate that he or she is willing to assist in escorting therequester. In some embodiments, pressing the “Accept” button 2002 mayresult in the escort user interface 20A changing to indicate that therequest has been accepted and the time until arrival. In someembodiments, this escort user interface 2000 may be similar to theescort request interface 1900 described above with respect to FIG. 19B.Various embodiments may include a button to open a communication channelwith the requester, similar to the communication channel described abovewith respect to FIG. 4.

If the registered user acting as the escort does not want to accept therequest for some reason, the user could press the “Deny” button 2004. Bypressing the “Deny” button 2004, the escort user interface 1900 maychange and look like the escort user interface 1900 illustrated in FIG.20B. The request that was denied may be removed from the escort userinterface 2000 of FIG. 20B. Where there are no more currently pendingescort requests, the escort user interface 2000 of FIG. 20B may indicatethat there are no additional requests.

In some embodiments in accordance with the technology of the presentdisclosure, the CSS may include a user category for individuals who, allthough not directly associated with an institution, may still have aninterest in emergencies that may arise. In the example schoolimplementation, such a user category may consist of parents or legalguardians of students attending the school. FIG. 8 is an example parentuser interface 800 in accordance with the technology of the presentdisclosure. As illustrated, the capabilities of the parent user categoryis more limited than the student or teacher user category discussedabove with respect to FIGS. 3-7. In the illustrated example, the parentuser interface 800 provides a broadcast message button 802 to enableregistered users associated with the parent user category to receive andview broadcast messages, similar to the broadcast message capabilitydiscussed above with respect to the student user interface 300 andteacher user interface 600.

In some embodiments, the parent user interface 800 may also include anongoing alerts button 804, which displays information related to alertsthat have been generated but have yet to be resolved. The ongoing alertsbutton 804 may provide an interface showing any ongoing alerts triggeredby a student associated with the parent in some embodiments. Alertstriggered by teachers for students associated with the parent may alsobe visible by pressing the ongoing alerts button 804 in variousembodiments. In this way, parents can stay informed about alertsgenerated by those school employees, namely teachers, whom are incontact with the parent's child.

Various embodiments of the parent user interface 800 may include aresolved alerts button 806, which provides a listing of alerts that havebeen resolved, meaning the emergency has been addressed and is no longerongoing. Users associated with the parent user category may view allresolved alerts that have been triggered within the CSS by pressing theresolved alerts button 806. By providing a listing of all resolvedalerts, parents may keep abreast of the goings on at the school, toprovide an idea of the level of safety provided by the institution. Inother embodiments, the resolved alerts button 806 may provide aninterface displaying only those resolved alerts which the student orstudents associated with the parent initiated.

Although the parent user category has been shown to have only passive,monitoring capabilities in the example parent user interface of FIG. 8,other embodiments and implementations of the present disclosure mayprovide active capabilities for the parent user category. For example,some embodiments may enable the parent user category to initiate analert. The extent of the capabilities provided to the parent usercategory depends on the particular implementation and the intentions ofthe implementing institution.

In addition to enabling parents to be kept abreast of emergenciesaffecting an associated student, the CSS 200 may allow for eachparent-student grouping to identify multiple security zones of interestin various embodiments. For example, in addition to the security zoneassociated with the school, the student may also be associated with asecond security zone—or home zone—encompassing the student's home. TheCSS 200 may be configured to alert the associated parent when thestudent leaves or enters either the main security zone or the home zone.In this way, the associated parent would be capable of determiningwhether something has gone on between the student leaving school for theday and coming home, or vice versa. The CSS 200 may be configured toidentify when a student user as entered or left a zone, and generate anotification that is sent to the associated parent user.

Another user category of the example school implementation is theadministrator user category. As discussed above with respect to FIG. 2,an administrator device 208 is a device where the registered userassociated with the device is part of an administrator user category. Inthe example school implementation, an administrator may be the schoolprincipal, vice principal, administrative staff, campus security, orother school officials granted the responsibility of addressingemergencies that arise on campus. In some cases, all teachers may alsobe associated with the administrator user category, and no separateteacher user category need be utilized.

FIG. 9 is an example administrator user interface 900 in accordance withthe technology of the present disclosure. As illustrated in FIG. 9, theadministrator user interface 900 provides the greatest amount ofcapabilities compared with the student user interface 300, teacher userinterface 600, or parent user interface 800.

The example administrator user interface 900 provides many of the samecapabilities that have been described above. Various embodiments provideadministrators with the ability to initiate alerts by pressing a SendAlert button 902, which brings up an alert type area and interfacesimilar to the student user interface 300 and the teacher user interface600. A broadcast messages button 904, ongoing alerts button 906, andresolved alerts button 908 may be provided in various embodiments. Thesebuttons may function in a similar way as those described above withrespect to the parent user interface 800, without the restrictions basedon association with a student or other user category. As anadministrator, it would be important to allow the administrator to viewall alerts and broadcasts initiated within the CSS in order to stayabreast of all occurrences on campus. The administrator user interface900 may also include a lockdown initiator 910, similar to the onedescribed above with respect to the teacher user interface 600.

In addition to similar functionality shared with one or more of thestudent, teacher, and parent user categories, the administrator userinterface 900 may also include the capability to generate and send outbroadcast messages to some or all of the registered users of the CSS. Bypressing the Send Broadcast button 912, an administrator may create abroadcast message, similar to the example broadcast message 504described above with respect to FIG. 5.

FIG. 10A illustrates an example broadcast generation interface 1000 inaccordance with the technology of the present disclosure. The broadcastgeneration interface 1000 is displayed on the administrator device whenthe Send Broadcast button 912 is pressed. An administrator may create abroadcast message, providing information relevant to the registeredusers of the CSS. As illustrated in FIG. 10B, the administrator mayselect one or more of the user categories as recipients of the broadcastmessage generated through the broadcast generation interface 1000. Forexample, using the user category list 1005, the administrator may chooseto send a broadcast message only to the teacher user category.

To ensure that broadcast messages or multiple alert notifications aresent and received in a timely manner, the NME 202 may be configured tohandle 100% load at a given time. For example, in some embodiments theNME 202 may include additional servers and/or load capacity than isrequired during quiet periods. When a large transmittal of informationis required, such as if a large emergency occurs and a broadcast messageneed be sent to all registered users, the NME 202 may identify the needfor additional capacity and utilize its entire capacity. This dedicationof resources ensures that all messages are timely sent and received,thus avoiding the delays that have occurred with current systems.Various embodiments may have one or more servers or areas of capacitywithin the NME 202 dedicated to servicing only broadcast messages,thereby ensuring sufficient capacity for such situations.

As discussed above with respect to FIG. 2, the police 214 may also beone of the user categories for the CSS 200. By including the police 214within the CSS 200, the police 214 are capable of staying abreast ofemergencies occurring within the security zone 210 of the CSS 200. Insome embodiments, the police 214 may have similar capabilities as thoseof the administrator user category described above with respect to FIG.9. The police 214 may have the ability to generate broadcast messages,like the administrator user category. By including the police 214 withinthe CSS 200 and providing the ability to generate broadcast messageslike administrators, embodiments of the technology disclosed hereinprovide an informational advantage to registered users of the CSS 200over other emergency notification systems.

Under current systems, the police are capable, at the most, of receivinginformation about an emergency from those at the scene, generally onlyafter arriving at the scene themselves. The two-way communicationcapable with embodiments of the present disclosure enable the police toreceive timely information from those at the scene in a timely manner,and also to present relevant information to the community at large in aneffective manner. This leads to a more robust response and a betterinformed community. In addition, the police may also utilize a system inaccordance with embodiments of the technology of the present disclosureto provide information to the registered users of other emergencies orsituations that may not be directly related to the campus, but which thepolice believe the registered users should be aware or could helpresolve.

Although the example school implementation discusses including thepolice 214 within the CSS 200, other public authorities may also beregistered with the CSS 200. For example, the fire department may beregistered with the CSS 200. In some embodiments, the police departmentand the fire department may be separated into distinct user categories,or the departments could be lumped into a civil service user category.As another example, the local hospital may be registered with the CSS200, to enable faster dispatch of ambulances to the school or otherinstitution.

Having just described the basic capabilities of each of the differentexample user categories, the interactions between the differentcomponents of the system for different notification events will now bedescribed in detail.

As discussed above, many of the user categories are capable ofinitiating alerts, whereby one or more administrators are notified of anemergency within the security zone of the CSS. FIG. 11 is an exampleprocess flow of the alert notification process in accordance with thetechnology of the present disclosure. At 1102, an alert notification isinitiated by a first registered user (e.g., via an CSS applicationoperating on the first registered user's device). In the example schoolimplementation, the first registered user may be a student, teacher,administrator, or the police. In other embodiments, the user categoriesmay differ.

At 1104, the NME receives the alert notification initiated by the firstregistered user. The NME is communicatively coupled to the CSSapplication of the first user's device via a network. The network may beone of: cellular telecommunications protocols, such as GSM, UMTS,CDMA2000, LTE, or WiMAX; wired communication methods, such as cable,DSL, dial-up, or fiber-optic; or wireless communication methods, such assatellite communications or Wi-Fi.

At 1106, upon receiving the alert notification, the NME tags the alertnotification with information identifying the first registered user. Bytagging the alert notification with information identifying the user whoinitiated the alert, the system injects accountability into the processto curtail prank alerts from being set off. In some embodiments, the NMEmay tag the alert notification with information identifying the locationof the first registered user. The location data may come from a GPSmodule operating within the first registered user's device. Variousembodiments may include the location data with the alert notification.In other embodiments, the NME may pull the information from the firstregistered user's device once the NME receives the alert notification.

Although location information may be included, privacy concerns mayencourage that the NME does not constantly monitor any registered user'slocation while connected to the CSS. For example, the NME may notretrieve location data until an alert is received. In other embodiments,the NME may obtain the location data once the CSS application isactivated on the user's device (such as opening the application), oronce a short link previously sent to the user's device has been pressed.In such embodiments, the idea is that a registered user may be seekingto generate an alert notification. In some embodiments, the locationdata may be retrieved from the first registered user's device only ifrequested by one or more of the administrator devices.

At 1108, the NME broadcasts the tagged alert notification to one or moreadministrator devices. By broadcasting the message to a plurality ofadministrators, the NME ensures that at least one administrator willnotice the alert and address the situation. In various embodiments, morethan one administrator may acknowledge the alert via their administratordevice. In such cases, a group message may be created.

At 1110, for each administrator that acknowledges the alert, the NME mayopen a secure communication channel between the first registered user'sdevice and one or more administrator devices. The communication channelinterface 400 of FIG. 4 was discussed earlier with respect to thestudent user interface 300 of FIG. 2. FIG. 12 illustrates an examplecommunication channel interface 1200 from the perspective of anadministrator in accordance with the technology of the presentdisclosure. As seen in FIG. 12, the communication channel interface 1200is not much different from the student's communication channel interface400 described above.

As illustrated in FIG. 12, the communication channel interface 1200 ofthe administrators and/or police includes an identification area 1202,containing information identifying the first registered user and thealert type selected for initiation. In some embodiments, greater orlesser detail may be included within the identification area 1202, oravailable through an information button 1204.

As discussed above, location information may be included with the alertnotification. In some embodiments, the communication channel interface1200 may include a map button 1206. By pressing the map button 1206, anadministrator or the police may view where the first registered user islocated within the security zone. The map button 1206 may textuallydisplay the first registered user's location, such as an insertdisplaying an address, building name, or other location identification.A visual representation of the first registered user's location may bedisplayed in various embodiments. FIG. 13 is an illustration of alocation visualization interface 1300 in accordance with one or moresuch embodiments of the present disclosure.

In addition to utilizing location information to provide more context toan emergency, the NME 202 may utilize location information to determinewhether a user should be permitted to initiate an alert. In someimplementations, it may be beneficial to limit the ability of registeredusers, such as students, to generate an emergency alert while notphysically located on campus. In addition to tagging emergency alertswith identifying information, limiting the ability to send alerts fromoutside the security zone helps curtail potential abuse of the two-waycommunication to generate false emergency alerts for purposes of pranks.To combat this, the NME 202 includes a “geo-fence” capability, used todetermine whether an emergency alert should be permitted to be sent toadministrative users.

FIG. 14 illustrates an example CSS 1400 with which a “geo-fence”capability of the NME 1402 in accordance with the technology of thepresent disclosure is described. In addition to utilizing locationinformation to provide more context to an emergency, the NME 202 mayutilize location information to determine whether a user should bepermitted to initiate an alert. In some implementations, it may bebeneficial to limit the ability of registered users, such as students,to generate an emergency alert while not physically located on campus.In addition to tagging emergency alerts with identifying information,limiting the ability to send alerts from outside the security zone helpscurtail potential abuse of the two-way communication to generate falseemergency alerts for purposes of pranks. To combat this, the NME 202includes a “geo-fence” capability, used to determine whether anemergency alert should be permitted to be sent to administrative users.

As illustrated in FIG. 14, the CSS 1400 is similar to the CSS 200described with respect to FIG. 2. Unlike FIG. 2, however, the CSS 1400shows user device 1406 a, which is outside the security zone 1410, anduser device 1406 b, which is inside the security zone. When an NME 1402receives an emergency alert from 1406 a and 1406 b, the NME 1402 canutilize location data from the user device of the registered users todetermine whether the user is within the security zone and, accordingly,should be permitted to notify one or more administrators of a potentialemergency.

FIG. 15 is a flow diagram of an example location-based capabilitydetermination method of the NME 1402 in accordance with embodiments ofthe technology herein disclosed. At 1502, the NME 1402 receives an alertnotification from a registered user (either via a CSS application, anSMS messaging program, email notification, or otherwise). At 1504, theNME 1402 identifies the user category associated with the registereduser who sent the alert notification. As discussed above, the registereduser may have been a student, teacher, administrator, or police invarious embodiments. The NME 1402 determines which user category appliesto the registered user who sent the alert notification. In the exampleschool implementation, only registered users associated with theadministrator user category of the police user category are allowed toinitiate an alert notification from outside the security zone, whilestudents and teachers are only capable of generating an emergency alertwhile within the security zone. Not only does this help curtail pranksand make it easier to maintain accountability, such limitation helps toensure that the students' and teachers' privacies are protected.

If the NME 1402 identifies the registered user as being associated withthe administrator user category or the police user category, the NME1402 proceeds normally, broadcasting the alert notification to one ormore administrator devices at 1506.

If the NME 1402 identified the registered user as being associated withthe student user category of the teacher user category, the NME 1402identifies the location of the registered user. In many embodiments,identifying the location of the registered user may involve retrievinglocation data from the user device of the registered user. Suchinformation may be obtained by the NME 1402 by retrieving theinformation from a GPS receiver of the user device, in some embodiments.In other embodiments, the location information may be included in theoriginal alert notification.

Once the NME 1402 identifies the registered user's location, the NME1402 determines whether the registered user's location is within thesecurity zone at 1510. As stated above, in some embodiments the studentuser category and teacher user category are limited to only sendingalert notifications to one or more administrators when on campus (i.e.,within the security zone). If the NME 1402 determines that the studentor teacher is within the security zone, the NME 1402 at 1506 proceedsnormally. If the NME 1402 determines that the student or teacher isoutside of the security zone, the NME 1402 at 1512 does not send thealert notification to one or more administrator devices. In someembodiments, the NME 1402 may display an error message to the student orteacher (via the user interface of the CSS application operating on theuser device, or via an SMS message sent to the user device, orotherwise).

As discussed above with respect to FIG. 8, a student user category maybe associated with, or tethered to, a parent user category. Withreference to FIG. 14, the CSS 1400 may enable a student user to send analert from outside the security zone 1410 to the tethered parent in someembodiments. FIG. 18 is a flow diagram illustrating another examplelocation-based capability determination method involving tethered usercategories in accordance with embodiments of the technology disclosedherein.

At 1802, the NME 1402 identifies the location of the registered studentuser. Although not shown, the identification of the registered studentuser's location is determined after the NME 1402 identifies a receivedalert as coming from a student user, similar to 1502 and 1504 describedwith respect to FIG. 15. In many embodiments, identifying the locationof the registered user may involve retrieving location data from theuser device of the registered user. Such information may be obtained bythe NME 1402 by retrieving the information from a GPS receiver of theuser device, in some embodiments. In other embodiments, the locationinformation may be included in the original alert notification.

The NME 1402 then determines whether the registered student user iswithin the security zone at 1804. If the NME 1402 determines that thestudent is within the security zone, the NME 1402 at 1806 proceedsnormally and transmits the alert to one or more administrator devices.

If the NME 1402 determines that the student is outside of the securityzone, the NME 1402 at 1808 determines whether the registered studentuser is tethered with another registered user. If the NME 1402determines that the student is not tethered with any other registeredusers, no alert is sent at 1810. If the NME does determine that thestudent is tethered with another registered user, the NME 1402 at 1814sends the alert to the tethered registered user.

In some embodiments, administrators, police, or other individuals ororganizations with emergency management responsibilities (e.g., crisismanagers) may want to seek information regarding the status of one ormore groups of registered members. FIGS. 23A and 23B illustrate anexample administrator interface 2300 and population status interface2350 in accordance with embodiments of the technology of the presentdisclosure. The administrator interface 2300 is a modification of theexample administrator interface discussed with respect to FIG. 9. Asillustrated in FIG. 23A, the administrator interface 2300 includes thesame elements as FIG. 9, with the addition of a population status button2305. A population status is a special type of broadcast communication.Instead of, or in addition to, broadcasting information out to theregistered members of an organization, the population status checkallows for administrators or other parties with emergency managementresponsibilities to obtain information on the status of all or some ofits members.

As discussed in greater detail below with respect to FIGS. 24A and 24B,a population status check broadcast sends a request to members of theorganization to respond with an update on their current condition and/orlocation. In the event a member is unable to respond, the lack ofresponse may be indicative of a situation developing for which someoneshould investigate. Moreover, based on the responses that are received,the administrators may be able to identify that an emergency isdeveloping or ongoing in a particular area, despite the lack of an alertbeing received. Clicking the population status button 2305 accesses thepopulation status interface 2350, illustrated in FIG. 23B.

As illustrated in FIG. 23B, the population status interface 2350includes a sent request window 2355. The sent request window 2355identifies past population status check requests that an administratoror other party with emergency management responsibilities sent. In someembodiments, the sent request window 2355 may maintain a listing of allprior requests, a specific number of prior requests (e.g. up to fourrequests), or a listing of all requests sent within a predeterminedperiod of time (e.g., all requests sent within the past 30 days). An“Active” indicator may be appended to any request that is still ongoing.In various embodiments, a request may remain “Active” for a particulartime period (e.g., for an hour), until all registered members haveresponded, or until the party that initiated the request ends it.

To initiate a population status check, the administrator can tap thesend status request button 2360 of the population status interface 2350,for example. In some embodiments, the send status request button may berepresented by a graphical icon in the top bar of the population statusinterface 2350, similar to the lockdown icon discussed above withrespect to FIG. 9. In other embodiments, to initiate a population statuscheck, the administrator can cause an SMS message to be sent from acommon short code to request a status update from one or more users(shown by way of example in FIG. 29B). A population status check mayalso include a location share request. When sending a population statuscheck, the administrator may choose to send out a request to allregistered members of the organization in some embodiments. In otherembodiments, the administrator may decide to send the request only tocertain categories of users, such as students, teachers, or parents.

When a population status request is sent, each member of theorganization may be alerted to the request. FIGS. 24A and 24B illustratean example student interface 2400 and population status responseinterface 2450, in accordance with embodiments of the technologydiscussed herein. The student interface 2400 is similar to the studentinterface discussed with respect to FIG. 3, with the addition of apopulation status request indicator 2410. A similar population statusrequest indicator 2410 may also be included with the teacher interfacediscussed with respect to FIG. 6, and/or the administrator interfacediscussed with respect to FIG. 9. In various embodiments, the populationstatus request indicator 2410 may only be present when a populationstatus request has been sent. The population status indicator 2410, inother embodiments, may also be present in the student interface 2400,and a new request indicator (e.g., a red exclamation point asillustrated in FIG. 24A) may appear to indicate that a new request hasbeen received.

When a student presses the population status request indicator 2410, astatus response interface 2450 is accessed, as illustrated in FIG. 24B.The example status response interface 2450 may, in some embodiments,include a listing of several pre-identified responses from which eachstudent may select. In some embodiments, an additional “other” optionmay be include (not pictured), in which the student may provide adifferent response from the pre-identified ones, or provide moreelaboration on the situation. In some embodiments, the student may beable to update the response while the status request is still active,enabling for the most up to date information to be provided.

Using the responses received from the different members of theorganization, several analytical measures may be determined. In someembodiments, the NME may store the responses from all members of theorganization. The NME may analyze the responses to identify any patternswith respect to the location of users and the types of responses theyprovided. For example, if a significant number of users indicated thatthey were on campus, but not safe, the NME could determine whether thoseusers were all in the same area. In such cases, it may be indicative ofa particular emergency developing or occurring in that area. The NMEcould provide this information to the administrator that sent thepopulation status request.

In various embodiments, the NME may analyze the responses and determinethat several users are updating their status while the population statusrequest remains active. In addition, the NME may retrieve locationinformation on the responding and/or all of the users. Based on theupdates and the location information, the NME may analyze the changes todetermine whether there is a pattern present indicating that there is amoving danger, such as an armed assailant. The NME may then indicate tothe administrator that requested the population status check to furtherrequest of the state of the danger.

Various embodiments discussed above view the operation from theperspective of a single organization maintaining a CSS. When a member ofan organization sends an alert, that alert is received by theadministrators or crisis managers of that particular organization.Multiple organizations, however, may implement their own notificationsystem, maintain their own list of registered users and defining its ownsecurity zone. In such situations, NME(s) may manage the security zonesassociated with each of the organizations, such that members of eachorganization are isolated from each other. This separation allows foreach organization to push out notifications and manage only those userswithin its own organization, who are generally the ones most interestedin notifications within the organization. Moreover, this isolationensure security of the information of registered users of eachorganization.

Although beneficial, this separation and lack of communication betweenthe CSS employed by each organization may cause unintended results wheremultiple organizations are located within the same vicinity as theother. If a member of one organization notices an emergency occurringwhile within the security zone of another organization (e.g., if astudent from a local university is at a shopping mall that employs aCSS), any alert that member attempts to send may only be sent to theadministrators of the member's organization, or not sent at all (ifalerts cannot be generated while outside the geo-fence of the member'sorganization). This raises the chance that an emergency alert to theshopping mall's CSS administrators may be delayed, or not beacknowledged at all.

FIG. 21 illustrates an example situation of multiple organizationshaving individual security zones (with geo-fencing) in accordance withembodiments of the technology disclosed herein. As illustrated,Organization A has set up a security zone 2110, Organization B has setup a security zone 2120, Organization C has set up a security zone 2130,and Organization D has set up a security zone 2140. In the illustratedembodiment, each organization (A, B, C, and D) have each implemented aCSS similar to the CSS discussed above. Although not pictured, in theillustrated embodiment the CSS of each organization may be managedthrough a common NME (as discussed with respect to FIGS. 1 and 2).

As illustrated in FIG. 21, when a member of Organization A is presentedat spot 2115 x, he is within the security zone of Organization A. Insuch cases, the member is capable of sending an alert to theadministrators of Organization A, similar to the embodiments discussedabove. When the member of Organization A moves to spot 2115 y, he is nolonger within the security zone of Organization A 2110, but is withinthe security zone of Organization B 2120. In some embodiments, themember is unable to generate an alert for an emergency because he isoutside of the security zone for Organization A 2110. In otherembodiments, the member may still generate an alert while he is withinthe security zone 2120 at spot 2115 y, but the alert would only bereceived by the administrators of Organization A, as the member at spot2115 y is only a member of Organization A. However, as the emergency isoccurring within security zone 2120 associated with Organization B, thiscould lead to a delay in response to the emergency.

In various embodiments, a member of one organization (e.g., OrganizationA) may be capable of generating an alert that is receivable by a secondorganization (e.g., Organization B) while that member is located withinthe security zone of the second organization. When the member ofOrganization A sends an alert while positioned at spot 2115 y, the NMEcan identify that the member is within the security zone 2120 associatedwith Organization B. Accordingly, the NME may route the alert generatedby the user to the administrators of Organization B as if the user was amember of Organization B the whole time. In some embodiments, the NMEmay also create a secure communication channel between the member ofOrganization A and the administrators of Organization B, similar to thesecure communication channel and features discussed above with respectto FIGS. 11-13. The member of Organization A may be treated by the NMEas if he was a member of Organization B. In various embodiments, the NMEmay limit the amount of information on the member that is available toOrganization B, such as limiting the information only to the location ofthe member. In some embodiments, the NME may tag the alert withanonymity information, which masks the identity of the user but stillenables Organization B to interact and respond to the emergency. Theanonymity data may comprise a numerical or alphanumerical term thatprovides a way for Organization B to refer to the user, but withoutknowing anything personal about the user. In this way, the member may beable to avail himself of the secure communication features of the CSS ofOrganization B, but the integrity of the separate organization'sinformation may be maintained by the NME.

As illustrated in FIG. 21, in some embodiments the security zones ofdifferent organizations may overlap, creating a shared notification zone2150. In various embodiments, when a member of Organization D is locatedat spot 2135, she is within the shared notification zone 2150 comprisinga portion of both security zone 2140 associated with Organization A andsecurity zone 2130 associated with Organization C. Both organizationsshare a responsibility over the safety of its members within the sharednotification zone 2150. When the member of Organization D sends an alertfrom spot 2135, the NME receives the alert and identifies that themember is located within the shared notification zone 2150. In additionto forwarding the alert to administrators of Organization D, the NME mayalso forward the alert to the administrators of Organization C, whichalso shares a responsibility and interest over the shared notificationzone 2150. The NME may further provide the member of Organization D withadditional features of the CSS of Organization C (e.g., securecommunication with administrators) in a similar manner as discussedabove with respect to the example involving Organizations A and B inFIG. 21.

FIG. 22 illustrates an example process of inter-organizationalcommunication in accordance with embodiments of the technology disclosedherein. At 2210, the NME receives an emergency alert from a user. At2220, the NME identifies the location of the user sending the emergencyalert. In some embodiments, the location of the user may be tagged toand/or included in the alert received by the NME, and identificationwould entail retrieving the location information. In other embodiments,the NME may request location data from the user's device, such as forexample from a GPS module of the user's device.

At 2230, the NME determines one or more organizations associated withthe user's location. In some embodiments, the NME may compare theidentified location against a listing of the boundaries of securityzones associated with the organizations managed by the NME. At 2240, theNME determines if the user is a member of any of the organizations. Byidentifying whether the user is a registered member of any of theorganizations associated with the user's location, the NME may provideadditional information and capabilities, similar to those discussed withrespect to FIGS. 11, 15, 16, and 18.

At 2250, the NME sends the alert to the administrators and/or crisismanagers associated with each of the identified organizations. Where thesecurity zones of two separate organizations overlap, the NME may sendthe alert to both organizations. If the user is a member of one of theorganizations determined to be associated with the user's location, theNME may proceed to operate in a manner similar to that discussed withrespect to FIGS. 11, 15, 16, and 18. If the user is not a member of oneor the organizations, the NME may send the alert to the administratorsand/or crisis managers of that organization and provide a modifiedversion of the services discussed with respect to FIGS. 11, 15, 16, and18, in some embodiments. In this way, the NME can ensure that theinterested administrators are notified of emergencies occurring withintheir security zones, regardless of whether the user reporting theemergency is registered with the affected organization.

As noted above, the various improvements of the present disclosure canbe extended to users employing SMS based messaging instead of employinga CSS application. In particular embodiments, the NME (or other elementof the CSS) may implement, in whole or in part, one or more methods thatenable the CSS to capture and handle non-preprogrammed SMS messages fromusers in a meaningful way, propagating such communications to otherusers as desired or prescribed. Such capabilities enable two-waycommunication between an increasing number of users—not just those thatare running the CSS App. That is, in accordance with one or moreembodiments of the present disclosure, systems and methods disclosedherein provide two-way communication between users by applyingspecialized handling operations with reference to common short codenotifications, and non-preprogrammed responses thereto, such that evenusers with phones not running the CSS application—but which are stillcapable of SMS messaging—may participate in bi-directional communicationwith other registered and/or unregistered users in the event of anemergency. Such systems and methods enable law enforcement, firstresponders, site administrators, security stake holders and/or others tonet relevant non-preprogrammed information from common short codenotification recipients not running the CSS application, but whonevertheless have pertinent information to share to aid in theresolution of a time sensitive or life-critical situation. Such systemsand methods increase information dissemination and reduce emergencyresponse time by integrating CSS App-to-CSS App with SMS-to-CMS Appinteractions, and vice versa, and further with SMS-to-SMS interactionsoccurring in accordance with propagation methodologies implemented viathe CSS (e.g., at the NME).

In accordance with some embodiments of the present disclosure, aregistered user (or in some embodiments, even an unregistered user) mayreceive a common short code sourced SMS broadcast notification on theiruser device, then reply back to the sender (often an administrator, orother entity associated with the common short code) with either apreprogrammed response or a non-preprogrammed response (e.g., afree-form or otherwise custom message), whereupon the NME of the CSSprocesses the message and selectively propagates that message to otherusers (e.g., depending on their category, location, permissions, etc.)thus enabling two-way communication and other functionality. FIG. 25illustrates an environment including an example communication flow ofthe present disclosure, discussed in more detail with reference to FIGS.26-32B. Referring to FIG. 25, an administrator 2501 may wish to transmita message to a plurality of users 2503. Some or all of the users 2503may be operating devices that either do not have CSS applicationdownloaded and running, or may have devices that are not even capable ofrunning the CSS application, but still may be able to receive SMSmessages on their devices (such devices are sometimes referred toherein, collectively, as SMS based devices, or simply, SMS devices).Administrator 2501 may prepare a message that can be sent as an SMSmessage to the plurality of users 2503 with SMS devices via common shortcode transmission by NME 2502. Administrator 2501's message is providedto NME 2502 either via a CSS App, an SMS program, an email, or otherwise(shown at operation 1), NME 2502 can then propagate the message as anSMS message from a common short code address to the plurality of users2503 with SMS devices for whom the administrator 2501 and/or NME 2502has contact information, e.g., a contact address such as a phone number,an email address, or any other unique identifier (shown at operation 2).The users 2503 in receipt of the common short code SMS message broadcastmay respond with an SMS based reply using their computing device's SMSfunctionality; the SMS reply may include a preprogrammed response, anon-preprogrammed response, or both. NME 104 may receive such messages(shown at operation 3) in accordance with one or more operations(examples of such described with reference to FIGS. 26-32B), and mayfurther propagate such messages to the sender of the original message(or one or more other people associated with the sender or the sender'sorganization), a subset of members of a predefined group, and/or one ormore of the other users 2503 (shown at operation 4).

It should be appreciated that although FIG. 25 is illustrated with asingle symbolic individual as the administrator 2501, the presentdisclosure is not limited to implementations where there is only asingle administrator is sending broadcast notifications. Theadministrator 2501 may include a team of individuals, and even includeone or more entire categories of individuals with the same or differentpermissions. For example, just as discussed with respect to FIGS. 1-24,an entire team of individuals may be associated with the administratorcategory (or other supervisory category)—such as campus teachers, deans,directors, professors, security staff, or other third party emergencyresponders responsible for the zone of interest (e.g., a campus).Furthermore, although FIG. 25 illustrates a communication flow thatoriginates with an administrator sending out an SMS based broadcastnotification, then netting user SMS replies to such broadcast, it shouldbe understood that the systems and methods of the present disclosure mayalso be configured to receive and handle SMS based messages thatoriginate from one or more users 2503 instead of an administrator 2501.

To fully integrate communications to and from SMS device users (asdistinct from users messaging using a CSS application) with systems ofthe present disclosure, one or more operations may be implemented at anNME of the CSS (and/or another element of the CSS) in accordance withembodiments of the present disclosure. FIG. 26 illustrates a method thatmay be implemented in one or more such embodiments of the presentdisclosure. As shown, at operation 2602 method 2600 may includereceiving an incoming SMS message addressed to a common short codeassociated with an entity. The incoming SMS message may have been sentin response to a broadcast notification (from an administrator of theentity, for example), in response to a population status request (froman administrator of the entity, for example, in connection with anongoing emergency); or may be a user-initiated alert notification (fromanother user of the system, sent spontaneously or in response to abroadcast, for example, providing insight about the emergencysituation), and/or the incoming message may have been accidently sent ornot associated with a registered user. It is up to the NME (or othercomponent of the CSS) to determine how to classify the incoming messageand propagate it to relevant other users of the CSS in a an acceptableplatform through which they may be interfacing with the CSS (e.g., SMS,email, App message, etc.). To accomplish this, once an incoming messagehas been received method 2600 may, at operation 2604, includeidentifying a phone number associated with the computing device fromwhich the incoming SMS message was sent; and, at operation 2606, method2600 may include determining if the phone number (or other contactinformation) identified is associated with a registered user.

Responsive to a determination that the phone number identified is notassociated with a registered user, method 2600 at operation 2608 maydetermine whether the incoming SMS message contains one or more keywordspredefined as SMS subscription keywords. Responsive to a determinationthat the incoming SMS message does contain one or more keywordspredefined as SMS subscription keywords, method 2600, at operation 2610,may process an SMS subscription for the phone number. Additional detailsregarding processing an SMS subscription for the phone number aredisclosed with reference to FIG. 31. And responsive to a determinationthat the incoming SMS message does not contain one or more keywordspredefined as SMS subscription keywords, method 2600 at operation 2614may simply discard/ignore the incoming SMS message (e.g., terminatesprocessing the incoming SMS message).

On the other hand, responsive to a determination that the phone numberidentified is associated with a registered user, method 2600 atoperation 2616 may identify one or more characteristics of the last sentnotification to the phone number, if any, the one or morecharacteristics including one or more of a notification type (e.g.,broadcast, population status request, etc.), and/or a time the last sentnotification was sent, and/or a topic the last sent message wasconcerned with, and/or any other characteristic that may be used toclassify the last sent notification.

Responsive to a determination that there is no record of any relevantlast notification being sent to the phone number, method 2600 atoperation 2618 determines whether the user associated with the phonenumber has authorization to initiate SMS alert notifications from theircomputing device. Responsive to a determination that the user associatedwith the phone number does not have authorization to initiate SMS alertnotifications from their computing device, method 2600 at operation 2620may simply discard/ignore the incoming SMS message (e.g., terminateprocessing the incoming SMS message). And responsive to a determinationthat the user associated with the phone number does have authorizationto initiate SMS alert notifications from their computing device, method2600 at operation 2620 may proceed to additional propagation operations(see Propagation Flow B illustrated in FIG. 27).

On the other hand, responsive to a determination that there is a recordof a last notification being sent to the phone number, method 2600 atoperation 2624 may determine an amount of time elapsed between the timethe last notification was sent and the incoming message was received. Ifthe amount of time elapsed exceeds a predetermined threshold, method2600 at operation 2624 may simply discard/ignore the incoming SMSmessage (e.g., terminates processing the incoming SMS message). If theamount of time elapsed does not exceed a predetermined threshold, method2600 at operation 2626 may proceed to additional propagation operations(see Propagation Flow A 2700 A illustrated in FIG. 27).

FIG. 27 illustrates methods that may be implemented in accordance withone or more embodiments of the technology disclosed herein. As shown inFIG. 27, propagation operations associated with Propagation Flow B 2700Bmay include, at operation 2750, proceeding to an SMS Alert MessageProcess 3100 if it is determined that the user associated with the phonenumber does have authorization to initiate SMS alert notifications fromtheir computing device.

As further shown in FIG. 27, propagation operations associated withPropagation Flow A 2700A may include, at operation 2702, determining atype classification for the last notification sent to the phone numberwithin the predetermined threshold. If the last notification sent to thephone number concerned a broadcast notification, Propagation Flow A2700A may include, at operation 2704, proceeding to an SMS BroadcastMessage Process 2800. If the last notification sent to the phone numberconcerned a population status request, Propagation Flow A 2700A mayinclude, at operation 2706, proceeding to an SMS Population Process2900. If the last notification sent to the phone number does not concerna broadcast notification, a population status request, or anotherrecognized communication, Propagation Flow A 2700A may include, atoperation 2708, tagging the incoming SMS message with an identifierassociated with an unknown classification type, and optionally propagatethe message to a designated administrator to manually sort and/orclassify the incoming SMS message (e.g., associate the incoming SMSmessage with an identifier associated with a known classification type,then pass the properly classified message to a subsequent step forincoming SMS messages of that type). FIG. 28A illustrates a method thatmay be implemented in accordance with one or more embodiments of thetechnology disclosed herein.

As shown in FIG. 28A, SMS Broadcast Process 2800 may, at operation 2802,determine whether the incoming SMS message includes a hotkey associatedwith a subset of users. Responsive to determining that the incoming SMSmessage does include a hotkey associated with a subset of users, SMSBroadcast Process 2800 may, at operation 2804, fetch the contactaddresses (e.g., phone number, email address, terminal ID, etc.) for thesubset of users. Thereafter, SMS Broadcast Process 2800 may, atoperation 2806, propagate the incoming SMS message to the subset ofusers, using the contact addresses fetched, before ending the process.In this way, some embodiments of the present disclosure enable a user toselectively send their reply to a broadcast to only a subset of theregistered users (less than all the registered users) connected with thesystem by using a hotkey. With the hotkeys of the present disclosure, auser may send, receive and view comments among a subset of the totalbody of users. For example, if someone in the organization, say asecurity officer, wants to let the management team know additionalinformation, he or she can respond to the broadcast with a specifichotkey thus, notifying the entire management team, and not just thesender. For instance, in this example the hotkey might be denoted by theterm “management” followed by a colon, then followed by the message thatthe user wants to send. Thus, the security officer, if wanting to limithis response to just the management team, might respond with thefollowing SMS message: “Management: ‘Hey team I just saw the perpetratorgoing into the Chemistry building’.” The system may recognize the“management” hotkey, fetch the subset of users associated with thathotkey, and propagate the message to that subset of users (e.g., via Appmessaging, SMS messaging, or both).

Alternatively, responsive to determining that the incoming SMS messagedoes not include a hotkey associated with a subset of users, SMSBroadcast Process 2800 may, at operation 2808, fetch the contactaddresses of the broadcast creator and/or the other recipients to whomthe broadcast message was sent. Thereafter, SMS Broadcast Process 2800may, at operation 2810, propagate the incoming SMS message to thebroadcast creator and/or the other recipients using the contactaddresses fetched, before ending the process. Propagating the messagemay include populating either or both of a CSS App broadcast commentfeed/interface or SMS comment feed/interface.

FIG. 28B illustrates an SMS based comment interface 2851 and an Appbased comment interface 2861. As shown, CSS may populate either or bothan SMS based comment interface 2851 and/or a CSS App based commentinterface 2861 with one or more of the broadcast notifications 2852,2862 and/or user responses 2853, 2863, in accordance with one or moreembodiments of the present disclosure.

FIG. 29A illustrates methods that may be implemented in accordance withone or more embodiments of the technology disclosed herein. As shown inFIG. 29, SMS Population Process 2900 may, at operation 2902, determineif the incoming message includes a safety indication indicating thesafety status of a user. Responsive to a determination that the incomingmessage does include a safety indication, SMS Population Process 2900may, at operation 2904, determine if the safety indication indicatesthat the associated registered user is safe or in danger. Responsive toa determination that the safety indication indicates that the associatedregistered user is in danger (or otherwise not safe), SMS PopulationProcess 2900 may, at operation 2910 store such data and determinations,and further open a secure channel of communication between theregistered user and an emergency responder responsible for the locationof the registered user, based on user location data captured, generated,or estimated. As shown, regardless of whether the safety indicationindicates that the associated user is safe or in danger, SMS PopulationProcess 2900 may, at operation 2908, transmit a link (e.g., short link)to the registered user which, if selected, will cause locationinformation about the user to be transmitted back to a computing devicethat transmitted the link, or caused the link to be transmitted, e.g.,an administrator. Thereafter, responsive to a user's selection of thelink, SMS Population Process 2900 may, at operation 2912,receive/capture the user location information (and optionally save andtimestamp such data). Alternatively, in response to a user's text-basedresponse (e.g., for users limited to or wishing to type out adescription of their location instead of share their location via shortlink), SMS Population Process 2900 may, at operation 2914, generate orestimate user location data based on the textual response (andoptionally save and timestamp such data). Also, responsive to adetermination that the safety indication indicates that the associatedregistered user is safe, and/or a determination that the user locationdata captured, generated, or estimated doesn't conflict with the ‘safe’safety indication, SMS Population Process 2900 may, at operation 2916,store such data and determinations. As further shown, SMS PopulationProcess 2900 may, at operation 2918 create a population status reportindicating location and/or safety status of registered users, to theextent it has been determined (e.g., of a plurality of registered usersfor whom location data has been obtained, and/or for whomlocation/safety status has been requested but not obtained).

In some embodiments, the method described above does not await a messageincluding a safety indication, but instead an NME server automaticallysends a short link to the recipient as soon as the recipient respondswith any SMS reply at all, or after a predetermined time period haspassed with no recipient response. In some embodiments, once therecipient inputs or sends a response, via SMS reply, a server at NMEwill automatically send a short link to that recipient, prompting themto tap a short link to share their location. Location sharing may belimited to an instantaneous share, or it may be continuously shared,either of which may be preset as desired when a user registers with theCSS, or may be based on the user's response in a given situation.

FIG. 29B illustrates just one example of how one or more methods of thepresent disclosure may be implemented. As shown, FIG. 29B depicts aninstance when a user replies to an SMS population status notificationvia a preprogrammed response—the SMS population status notificationdenoted by message 2981, the user's SMS reply denoted by message 2982(including the preprogrammed response). As shown, a message 2983 is sentprompting the user to click a transmitted short link to acquire GPSlocation data from the user. Upon the user selecting the short link, thelocation data (provided by the GPS sensor in the user's mobile phone,for example) is then relayed into the CSS over the network, and backinto the application to provide administrators (and/or other users suchas emergency responders) with robust location information aboutregistered users. In some embodiments, when the user tap the short link(e.g., a bit.ly link) they are taken to a web browser through whichtheir location may be shared with the server.

There are many cases in which this type of interaction may be beneficialto safety stewards, law enforcement, administrators, emergencyresponders, etc. For example, if an organization administrator needs toquickly locate their employees or students on a field trip or businesstrip, they can broadcast a notification with a population status requestin order to net location and safety details from their constituents(e.g., registered users) via SMS. In another example, for instance, inthe event of an earthquake, fire, or lockdown, for a business,government, or school, safety stewards can send an SMS population statusnotification to account for each constituent's location and safetystatus in order to identify those in need of medical assistance.

In some embodiments, as location information is obtained from individualusers, the CSS may populate a location visualization interface to depictsuch information, e.e., generate and project display objects onto avisual map to depict user's respective locations. One such examplevisualization interface is shown in FIG. 29C, display object 2991representing the location of a registered user in the context of the mapshown. Such maps and display objects may be provided via a CSS App, aWeb application, or as part of an augmented reality map display (i.e.,where the map is the real world scene captured by the user's computingdevice's camera), etc.

FIG. 30 illustrates methods that may be implemented in accordance withone or more embodiments of the technology disclosed herein. As shown inFIG. 30, SMS Alert Message Process 3000 may, at operation 3002 open, orprompt a user to open, a communication conference channel (e.g., phonecall, text conversation, video chat, etc.) between the registered userand an administrator (or other support staff member or emergencyresponder). At operation 3004, SMS Alert Message Process 3000 maynotify, selectively or automatically, other registered users of theongoing communication conference channel between the registered userand/or provide such users with an access link to access the ongoingcommunication conference channel (e.g., dial-in number to access aconference call). At operation 3006, SMS Alert Message Process 3000 maygenerate and provide authorization key(s) to the other registered usersnotified, the authorization key(s) specific to the ongoing communicationconference channel. At operation 3007, SMS Alert Message Process 3000may optionally assign an expiration time with the authorization key.Upon a recipient registered user's selection (or other operation) of theaccess link for the communication conference channel, SMS Alert MessageProcess 3000 may, at operation 3008, request entry of the authorizationkey provided to the recipient registered users. At operation 3007, SMSAlert Message Process 3000 may determine if the authorization key therecipient registered user entered: (i) matches the authorization keyprovided to the recipient user, and/or (ii) is not expired (i.e., isstill active).

Responsive to a determination that the authorization key the recipientregistered user entered does match the authorization key provided to therecipient user, SMS Alert Message Process 3000 may, at operation 3012,join the recipient registered user into the communication conferencechannel. At operation 3014, SMS Alert Message Process 3000 may monitoractivity on the communication conference channel (e.g., sense thepresence or absence of audio signals being transmitted within a phoneconference (i.e. listening in on the channel), determine if SMSmessaging within a group text conference has ended (i.e., checking tosee if communication has not occurred for a predetermined amount oftime). At operation 3016, SMS Alert Message Process 3000 may determinewhether or not the communication conference channel is being utilized.Responsive to a determination that the communication conference channelis being utilized, SMS Alert Message Process 3000 may, at operation3018, leave the communication conference channel open. Responsive to adetermination that the communication conference channel is not beingutilized, SMS Alert Message Process 3000 may, at operation 3018, closethe communication conference channel. Optionally, SMS Alert MessageProcess 3000 may, at operation 3021, notify recipient registered usersthat the communication conference channel has closed, and/or deactivateauthorization key(s) previously provided to recipient registered users,and/or deactivate access link(s) previously provided to recipientregistered users.

Alternatively, responsive to a determination that the authorization keythe recipient registered user entered does not match the authorizationkey provided to the recipient registered user, SMS Alert Message Process3000 may, at operation 3022, deny access to the communication conferencechannel to the recipient registered user. Optionally, SMS Alert MessageProcess 3000 may, at operation 3023 request re-entry of theauthorization key from the recipient registered user, then loop tooperation 3010 unless and/or until the recipient registered user entersthe correct active authorization key.

FIG. 31 illustrates methods that may be implemented in accordance withone or more embodiments of the technology disclosed herein. As shown inFIG. 31, responsive to a determination that the message does contain oneor more keywords predefined as SMS subscription keywords, SMSSubscription Process 3100 may, at operation 3102, process an SMSsubscription for the phone number. Optionally, SMS Subscription Process3100 may, at operation 3104, request additional user credentials bysending one or more individual SMS messages requesting one or moreindividual pieces of information, each subsequent request maderesponsive to an immediately prior request being responded to by the newuser. At operation 3106, SMS Subscription Process 3100 may associate thephone number with the additional user credential obtained, and store asa user record within an electronic storage accessible to the CSS.Optionally, SMS Subscription Process 3100 may, at operation 3107,monitor receipt of an SMS message including one or more active keywordscorresponding to an SMS unsubscription request. Responsive to receivingan SMS message including such one or more keywords corresponding to anSMS unsubscription request, SMS Subscription Process 3100 may, atoperation 3109, delete the user record associated with the phone numberfrom the electronic storage.

In accordance with one or more of the methods illustrated in FIGS.25-31, SMS notifications may be sent from within a CSS via the CSS Appor via an SMS program, triggering the propagation of a message tousers—either via the CSS App, or via SMS message sent from a commonshort code, or via other communication platforms. By applying thepresently disclosed technology, all users that receive the common shortcode based SMS notification have the ability to respond back to that SMSnotification using their computing devices SMS capability, and the replymessage may be populated back into the CSS App broadcast feed such thatusers of the App may net information from both CSS App users as well asSMS users. The technology disclosed herein enables SMS users to respondto a mass broadcast notification such that their message is posted backinto a system and have that message provided back to a predefined subsetof users. The utility of the present disclosure is substantial, and oneof ordinary skill in the art will appreciate how such an improvement tocommunity safety systems can be beneficial to society generally. Forexample, if a child goes missing, a safety steward can notify thousandsof people instantly with an SMS message tied to a common short codeaffiliated with the entity, and subsequently the system can net relevantSMS responses back from such people. The broadcast messages and/orresponses thereto can also contain a photo which can help identifyfaces, locations, etc. The system can feed such information into the CSSApp environment such that SMS based users and mobile CSS App based userscan engage in bidirectional communication with one another despite usingdifferent technical messaging platforms.

In another example, the methods of the present disclosure may also beused to account for many people rapidly. For example, a sender mayprompt registered users to reply to a common short code SMS basedbroadcast for accountability purposes. For businesses, governments, andschools, instant accountability helps mitigate loss of life duringcritical incidents. People can reply to the broadcast message, enablingthe sender (and/or other recipients) with a stream of comments that arenetted from respective registered users.

As described herein, the communication methods described herein can beutilized for netting non-preprogrammed SMS responses in the event of amass broadcast notification where the sender is looking for a specificset of answers from said registered users, as in the example of amissing child. Furthermore, many people can reply to that broadcastnotification, thereby providing the sender with a stream of broadcastcomments for any situation in which they are looking to net tacticalinformation, quickly, and from a wide audience.

Similarly, in another application, law enforcement personnel, and safetystewards (e.g., emergency responders) can direct large populations ofpeople to conduct certain actions by instructing them via SMS short codemass notifications, and netting non-preprogrammed responses back fromsaid registered users to obtain the rich, real-time (or near real-time)information needed to most efficiently resolve the ongoing situation.Specifically for law enforcement, pictures can be sent via broadcast SMSnotifications, enabling said registered users to receive details on anassailant, and again, prompting said registered users to reply back tothe broadcast notification via SMS should they have any identifiable ortactical information on the assailants whereabouts or habits, forexample

As will be apparent upon a review of the instant disclosure, if saidbroadcast sender uses the CSS application to post the broadcast data,responsive SMS replies may populate the CSS App, enabling the sender toview responses to the broadcast in a real-time, or near real-time feed.This method enables the sender (or other operator) to view a commentstream in response to the broadcast, in an organized and seamlessexperience that is enriched with information from registered usersregardless of whether they are using the CSS App itself, or simply usinga SMS messaging platform. The recipients of the broadcast message mayreply back with a free-form SMS message to the common short code, andtheir reply will be displayed in the administrator's CSS App (and/orother user's CSS App) as a broadcast comment and, optionally, will notbe relayed to the senders SMS messages. That is, in some embodiments thesystem may net the SMS reply and populate it into the broadcast commentfeed of the receiver's CSS App instead of the typical SMS messagingfeed. In some embodiments, the SMS reply may be populated to both thebroadcast comment feed of the receiver's CSS App as well as the typicalSMS messaging feed. In some other instances, a sender may not be sendingout the common short code SMS message from a mobile device, but insteadfrom a web portal or other terminal, for example. In some suchembodiments, if the sender does not have a mobile device, the sender mayreceive replies via an SMS messaging feature integrated with the webportal (or the computing device providing access to the web portal).

In some embodiments, the technology of the present disclosure may beextended even to individuals who are not part of a predefinedorganization known to the NME. That is, the CSS may be integratedto/with third party systems to extend the features of the presentlydisclosed CSS to users that were previously unknown to the CSS. Suchintegration may be provided to mitigate situations where intendedrecipients cannot interact with the CSS (e.g., receive broadcastnotifications, participate in alert notification/call functionality, orreceive and respond to population status request notifications (e.g.,via common short code, or a CSS App, or otherwise)) and thus eithercannot give or receive important information pertinent to an emergencysituation. With the technology of the present disclosure, the CSS may beintegrated with one or more third party entities (e.g., EMS entitiessuch as a 911 Public Safety Answering Point (PSAP) for example, suchthat it can still be used to net a user's location via common short codecommunication), even if the user is not part of any predefinedorganization known to the CSS.

For example, as illustrated in FIG. 32A, an NME 3204 (or other CSSelement of the systems disclosed herein) may be in operativecommunication with a 911 PSAP entity 3203 who may receive an SMSnotification via 911 SMS message from a sender 3202 who is not otherwisepart of a predefined organization known to NME 3204 (denoted byoperation 1). If the 911 PSAP entity 3203 wishes to net the sender'slocation, it may provide the sender's phone number to NME 3204 with arequest to net the sender's location (denoted by operation 1), e.g., byinputting the senders SMS number into the CSS App of the presentdisclosure, for example, or by configuring the incoming SMS messages tobe automatically bounced to the NME, in another example. The NME serversmay generate and send a location sharing short link to the sender'snumber (denoted by operation 3) and, upon the sender's selection of theshort link, capture the sender's location (denoted by operation 1) andtransmit it to the 911 PSAP entity (denoted by operation 1), e.g., via aweb browser, CSS App interface, or the like. In some embodiments theshort link may authorize a periodic, or even continuous share of thesender's location. For example, The location may be polled every 15seconds as long as the web browser is still running, or fed continuouslyto the NME until the user selects an option to terminate locationsharing, etc.

FIG. 32B illustrates a method 3210 that may be implemented in accordancewith one or more embodiments of the present disclosure, in connectionwith the illustration provided at FIG. 32A. As shown, at operation 3212,method 3210 may include receiving from a 911 PSAP (or other third partyentity), one or more details about an SMS message received at the 911PSAP (or other third party entity). At operation 3214, method 3210 mayinclude generating a location sharing short link. At operation 3216,method 3210 may include transmitting the short link in/as an SMS messageto the sender of the SMS message received at the 911 PSAP (or otherthird party entity). Responsive to said sender's selection of the shortlink, at operation 3218 method 3210 may includereceiving/obtaining/capturing said sender's location data (andoptionally saving and timestamping such data). At operation 3220, method3210 may include transmit one or more details of sender's location to911 PSAP (or other third party entity).

Although not illustrated in FIGS. 1-32, it should further be recognizedthe NME of the present disclosure may be configured to translate thelanguage used in a sender's message (whether SMS based, email based,push notification based, App based messaging or otherwise) to apreferred language of a given recipient that is known to the system.This way, the language barrier among individuals in communication withCSS can be minimized on-the-fly to further enable more efficientresolution of emergency situations. The NME of CSS may even beconfigured to propagate messages of a certain language only to otherusers who the system understands to be proficient in the certainlanguage. In some embodiments, the NME of CSS may propagate a messageas-written in a certain language to recipients who the NME recognizes isproficient in such certain language, and may translate the message intothe preferred languages of the other recipients who are not proficientin such certain language.

Although often discussed in view of an example implementation by aschool, the technology of the present disclosure is not limited only tothe school environment. The technology may be implemented in manydifferent types of institutions, such as hospitals, shopping malls,fairs and carnivals, conferences centers and convention halls, themeparks, sports venues, and other institutions where many peoplecongregate. The technology may also be implemented by less publiclyaccessible institutions, such as factories, government buildings, oroffice buildings. After reading the description herein, it will becomeapparent to one of ordinary skill in the art that the disclosedtechnology can be implemented on any number of different campuses and byany number of different institutions. Nothing in this disclosure shouldbe interpreted as limiting the scope of the technology disclosed hereinto the discussed embodiments.

As used herein, the term module might describe a given unit offunctionality that can be performed in accordance with one or moreembodiments of the technology disclosed herein. As used herein, a modulemight be implemented utilizing any form of hardware, software, or acombination thereof. For example, one or more processors, controllers,ASICs, PLAs, PALs, CPLDs, FPGAs, logical components, software routinesor other mechanisms might be implemented to make up a module. Inimplementation, the various modules described herein might beimplemented as discrete modules or the functions and features describedcan be shared in part or in total among one or more modules. In otherwords, as would be apparent to one of ordinary skill in the art afterreading this description, the various features and functionalitydescribed herein may be implemented in any given application and can beimplemented in one or more separate or shared modules in variouscombinations and permutations. Even though various features or elementsof functionality may be individually described or claimed as separatemodules, one of ordinary skill in the art will understand that thesefeatures and functionality can be shared among one or more commonsoftware and hardware elements, and such description shall not requireor imply that separate hardware or software components are used toimplement such features or functionality.

Where components or modules of the technology are implemented in wholeor in part using software, in one embodiment, these software elementscan be implemented to operate with a computing or processing modulecapable of carrying out the functionality described with respectthereto. One such example computing module is shown in FIG. 17. Variousembodiments are described in terms of this example-computing module1700. After reading this description, it will become apparent to aperson skilled in the relevant art how to implement the technology usingother computing modules or architectures.

Referring now to FIG. 17, computing module 1700 may represent, forexample, computing or processing capabilities found within desktop,laptop and notebook computers; hand-held computing devices (PDA's, smartphones, cell phones, palmtops, etc.); mainframes, supercomputers,workstations or servers; or any other type of special-purpose orgeneral-purpose computing devices as may be desirable or appropriate fora given application or environment. Computing module 1700 might alsorepresent computing capabilities embedded within or otherwise availableto a given device. For example, a computing module might be found inother electronic devices such as, for example, digital cameras,navigation systems, cellular telephones, portable computing devices,modems, routers, WAPs, terminals and other electronic devices that mightinclude some form of processing capability.

Computing module 1700 might include, for example, one or moreprocessors, controllers, control modules, or other processing devices,such as a processor 1704. Processor 1704 might be implemented using ageneral-purpose or special-purpose processing engine such as, forexample, a microprocessor, controller, or other control logic. In theillustrated example, processor 1704 is connected to a bus 1702, althoughany communication medium can be used to facilitate interaction withother components of computing module 1700 or to communicate externally.

Computing module 1700 might also include one or more memory modules,simply referred to herein as main memory 1708. For example, preferablyrandom access memory (RAM) or other dynamic memory, might be used forstoring information and instructions to be executed by processor 1704.Main memory 1708 might also be used for storing temporary variables orother intermediate information during execution of instructions to beexecuted by processor 1704. Computing module 1700 might likewise includea read only memory (“ROM”) or other static storage device coupled to bus1702 for storing static information and instructions for processor 1704.

The computing module 1700 might also include one or more various formsof information storage mechanism 1710, which might include, for example,a media drive 1712 and a storage unit interface 1720. The media drive1712 might include a drive or other mechanism to support fixed orremovable storage media 1714. For example, a hard disk drive, a floppydisk drive, a magnetic tape drive, an optical disk drive, a CD or DVDdrive (R or RW), or other removable or fixed media drive might beprovided. Accordingly, storage media 1714 might include, for example, ahard disk, a floppy disk, magnetic tape, cartridge, optical disk, a CDor DVD, or other fixed or removable medium that is read by, written toor accessed by media drive 1712. As these examples illustrate, thestorage media 1714 can include a computer usable storage medium havingstored therein computer software or data.

In alternative embodiments, information storage mechanism 1710 mightinclude other similar instrumentalities for allowing computer programsor other instructions or data to be loaded into computing module 1700.Such instrumentalities might include, for example, a fixed or removablestorage unit 1722 and an interface 1720. Examples of such storage units1722 and interfaces 1720 can include a program cartridge and cartridgeinterface, a removable memory (for example, a flash memory or otherremovable memory module) and memory slot, a PCMCIA slot and card, andother fixed or removable storage units 1722 and interfaces 1720 thatallow software and data to be transferred from the storage unit 1722 tocomputing module 1700.

Computing module 1700 might also include a communications interface1724. Communications interface 1724 might be used to allow software anddata to be transferred between computing module 1700 and externaldevices. Examples of communications interface 1724 might include a modemor softmodem, a network interface (such as an Ethernet, networkinterface card, WiMedia, IEEE 802.XX or other interface), acommunications port (such as for example, a USB port, IR port, RS232port Bluetooth® interface, or other port), or other communicationsinterface. Software and data transferred via communications interface1724 might typically be carried on signals, which can be electronic,electromagnetic (which includes optical) or other signals capable ofbeing exchanged by a given communications interface 1724. These signalsmight be provided to communications interface 1724 via a channel 1728.This channel 1728 might carry signals and might be implemented using awired or wireless communication medium. Some examples of a channel mightinclude a phone line, a cellular link, an RF link, an optical link, anetwork interface, a local or wide area network, and other wired orwireless communications channels.

In this document, the terms “computer program medium” and “computerusable medium” are used to generally refer to media such as, forexample, memory 1708, storage unit 1720, media 1714, and channel 1728.These and other various forms of computer program media or computerusable media may be involved in carrying one or more sequences of one ormore instructions to a processing device for execution. Suchinstructions embodied on the medium, are generally referred to as“computer program code” or a “computer program product” (which may begrouped in the form of computer programs or other groupings). Whenexecuted, such instructions might enable the computing module 1700 toperform features or functions of the disclosed technology as discussedherein.

While various embodiments of the disclosed technology have beendescribed above, it should be understood that they have been presentedby way of example only, and not of limitation. Likewise, the variousdiagrams may depict an example architectural or other configuration forthe disclosed technology, which is done to aid in understanding thefeatures and functionality that can be included in the disclosedtechnology. The disclosed technology is not restricted to theillustrated example architectures or configurations, but the desiredfeatures can be implemented using a variety of alternative architecturesand configurations. Indeed, it will be apparent to one of skill in theart how alternative functional, logical or physical partitioning andconfigurations can be implemented to implement the desired features ofthe technology disclosed herein. Also, a multitude of differentconstituent module names other than those depicted herein can be appliedto the various partitions. Additionally, with regard to flow diagrams,operational descriptions and method claims, the order in which the stepsare presented herein shall not mandate that various embodiments beimplemented to perform the recited functionality in the same orderunless the context dictates otherwise.

Although the disclosed technology is described above in terms of variousexemplary embodiments and implementations, it should be understood thatthe various features, aspects and functionality described in one or moreof the individual embodiments are not limited in their applicability tothe particular embodiment with which they are described, but instead canbe applied, alone or in various combinations, to one or more of theother embodiments of the disclosed technology, whether or not suchembodiments are described and whether or not such features are presentedas being a part of a described embodiment. Thus, the breadth and scopeof the technology disclosed herein should not be limited by any of theabove-described exemplary embodiments.

Terms and phrases used in this document, and variations thereof, unlessotherwise expressly stated, should be construed as open ended as opposedto limiting. As examples of the foregoing: the term “including” shouldbe read as meaning “including, without limitation” or the like; the term“example” is used to provide exemplary instances of the item indiscussion, not an exhaustive or limiting list thereof; the terms “a” or“an” should be read as meaning “at least one,” “one or more” or thelike; and adjectives such as “conventional,” “traditional,” “normal,”“standard,” “known” and terms of similar meaning should not be construedas limiting the item described to a given time period or to an itemavailable as of a given time, but instead should be read to encompassconventional, traditional, normal, or standard technologies that may beavailable or known now or at any time in the future. Likewise, wherethis document refers to technologies that would be apparent or known toone of ordinary skill in the art, such technologies encompass thoseapparent or known to the skilled artisan now or at any time in thefuture.

The presence of broadening words and phrases such as “one or more,” “atleast,” “but not limited to” or other like phrases in some instancesshall not be read to mean that the narrower case is intended or requiredin instances where such broadening phrases may be absent. The use of theterm “module” does not imply that the components or functionalitydescribed or claimed as part of the module are all configured in acommon package. Indeed, any or all of the various components of amodule, whether control logic or other components, can be combined in asingle package or separately maintained and can further be distributedin multiple groupings or packages or across multiple locations.

Additionally, the various embodiments set forth herein are described interms of exemplary block diagrams, flow charts and other illustrations.As will become apparent to one of ordinary skill in the art afterreading this document, the illustrated embodiments and their variousalternatives can be implemented without confinement to the illustratedexamples. For example, block diagrams and their accompanying descriptionshould not be construed as mandating a particular architecture orconfiguration.

What is claimed is:
 1. A system comprising: a notification managemententity comprising one or more servers, the notification managemententity communicatively coupled to one or more user devices and one ormore administrator devices, the notification management entitymaintaining a list including registered users, wherein the notificationmanagement entity is configured, responsive to receiving an incomingfree-form SMS message, to: identify a phone number associated with adevice from which the incoming free-form SMS message was sent; determinewhether the phone number is associated with a registered user to whom abroadcast notification has been sent; determine, responsive to adetermination that the phone number is associated with the registereduser to whom the broadcast notification has been sent, whether theincoming free-form SMS message includes a hotkey associated with asubset of users; and relay, responsive to a determination that theincoming free-form SMS messages includes the hotkey associated with thesubset of users, the incoming free-form SMS message to one or more userdevices of the subset of users.
 2. The system of claim 1, wherein thenotification management entity is further configured to: determine,responsive to a determination that the phone number is not associatedwith a registered user to whom the broadcast notification has been sent,whether the registered user associated with the phone number hasauthorization to initiate free-form SMS broadcast notifications; andrelay, responsive to a determination that the registered user associatedwith the phone number has authorization to initiate free-form SMSbroadcast notifications, the incoming free-form SMS message to at leastone of the one or more administrator devices.
 3. The system of claim 2,wherein the notification management entity is further configured to:discard, responsive to a determination that the registered userassociated with the phone number does not have authorization to initiatefree-form SMS broadcast notifications, the incoming free-form SMSmessage.
 4. The system of claim 3, wherein discarding the incomingfree-form SMS message comprises a deletion operation.
 5. The system ofclaim 1, wherein the notification management entity is furtherconfigured to: open a secure communication conference channel betweenthe device from which the incoming free-form SMS message was sent and atleast one of the one or more administrator devices.
 6. The system ofclaim 5, wherein the notification management entity is furtherconfigured to: monitor communication activity occurring over the securecommunication conference channel; and close the secure communicationconference channel responsive to a determination that the communicationactivity occurring over the secure communication conference channelmeets a first non-utilization criteria.
 7. The system of claim 6,wherein the first non-utilization criteria is met if no communicationtakes place over the secure communication conference channel for apredefined period of time.
 8. The system of claim 6, wherein thenotification management entity is further configured to: notify one ormore additional administrators or one or more additional registeredusers of an ongoing secure communication conference channel; provide theone or more additional administrators or the additional one or moreregistered users with an access link and an authentication key to accessthe ongoing secure communication conference channel; prompt, upon arecipient administrator's or a recipient registered user's selection ofthe access link for the ongoing secure communication conference channel,the selecting recipient administrator or the selecting recipientregistered user to enter the authorization key; and join, responsive toa determination that the selecting recipient administrator or theselecting recipient registered user entering the authorization key, suchselecting recipient administrator or selecting recipient registered userinto the ongoing secure communication conference channel.
 9. The systemof claim 8, wherein the notification management entity is furtherconfigured to: monitor communication activity occurring over the ongoingsecure communication conference channel; close the ongoing securecommunication conference channel responsive to a determination that thecommunication activity occurring over the ongoing secure communicationconference channel meets a second non-utilization criteria.
 10. Thesystem of claim 9, wherein the second non-utilization criteria is met ifno communication takes place over the ongoing secure communicationconference channel for a predefined period of time.
 11. The system ofclaim 1, wherein at least one of the one or more administrator devicesis associated with an emergency medical services department.
 12. Thesystem of claim 1, wherein the incoming free-form SMS message is relayedto the one or more user devices of the subset of users further inresponse to a determination that an amount of time elapsed between whena last notification was sent and the incoming free-form SMS message wasreceived is less than a predetermined threshold.
 13. The system of claim1, wherein relaying the incoming free-form SMS message to the one ormore user devices of the subset of users comprises populating amessaging interface of an application running on the one or more userdevices with text of the incoming free-form SMS message.
 14. A methodcomprising: identifying a phone number associated with a device fromwhich the incoming free-form SMS message was sent; determining whetherthe phone number is associated with a registered user to whom abroadcast notification has been sent; determining, responsive to adetermination that the phone number is associated with the registereduser to whom the broadcast notification has been sent, whether theincoming free-form SMS message includes a hotkey associated with asubset of users; and relaying, responsive to a determination that theincoming free-form SMS messages includes the hotkey associated with thesubset of users, the incoming free-form SMS message to one or more userdevices of the subset of users.
 15. The method of claim 14, furthercomprising: determining, responsive to a determination that the phonenumber is not associated with a registered user to whom the broadcastnotification has been sent, whether the registered user associated withthe phone number has authorization to initiate free-form SMS broadcastnotifications; and relaying, responsive to a determination that theregistered user associated with the phone number has authorization toinitiate free-form SMS broadcast notifications, the incoming free-formSMS message to one or more administrator devices.
 16. The method ofclaim 14, further comprising: opening a secure communication conferencechannel between the device from which the incoming free-form SMS messagewas sent and one or more administrator devices.
 17. The method of claim16, further comprising: monitoring communication activity occurring overthe secure communication conference channel; and closing the securecommunication conference channel responsive to a determination that thecommunication activity occurring over the secure communicationconference channel meets a non-utilization criteria.
 18. The method ofclaim 17, wherein the non-utilization criteria is met if nocommunication takes place over the secure communication conferencechannel for a predefined period of time.
 19. The method of claim 17,further comprising: notifying one or more additional administrators orone or more additional registered users of an ongoing securecommunication conference channel; providing the one or more additionaladministrators or the additional one or more registered users with anaccess link and an authentication key to access the ongoing securecommunication conference channel; prompting, upon a recipientadministrator's or a recipient registered user's selection of the accesslink for the ongoing secure communication conference channel, theselecting recipient administrator or the selecting recipient registereduser to enter the authorization key; and joining, responsive to adetermination that the selecting recipient administrator or theselecting recipient registered user entering the authorization key, suchselecting recipient administrator or selecting recipient registered userinto the ongoing secure communication conference channel.
 20. Anon-transitory computer readable storing machine readable instructionswhich, when executed by a processor, cause the processor to: identify aphone number associated with a device from which an incoming free-formSMS message was sent; determine whether the phone number is associatedwith a registered user to whom a broadcast notification has been sent;determine, responsive to a determination that the phone number isassociated with a registered user to whom the broadcast notification hasbeen sent, whether the incoming free-form SMS message includes a hotkeyassociated with a subset of users; and relay, responsive to adetermination that the incoming free-form SMS messages includes thehotkey associated with the subset of users, the incoming free-form SMSmessage to one or more user devices of the subset of users.